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THE 



RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 



Does the Bible Teach it ? 



E. NISBET, D.D. 

INTRODUCTION BY 

G. W. SAMSON, D. D., 

Formerly President Columbian University, D. (7. 
Thou sowest not that body that shall be. — Paul. 




New Yobk: 
TH^P AUTHORS' PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1877. 

ft 6 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 

THE AUTHORS' PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C, 



A TBXBUTE 

TO 

MY LOVING FATHER AND MOTHER, 

ALEXANDEE and MAEGAEET NISBET, 

PILGRIMS TOGETHER EOE MOEE THAN HALF A CENTURY ; 
AND 

GEOEGE E. NISBET, 

BEST OF BROTHERS, MOST DUTIFUL OF SONS ; 
ALL PASSED OVER INTO THE HIGHER LIFE, 

the avadra6i$ , 
IS this book offered by 

THE AUTHOE. 



PBEFACE. 

Men inhale their beliefs from the atmosphere which hap- 
pens to surround them. This is true in every department 
of thought, e. g., politics, art, religion. Were Christians 
asked to-day for the reasons of their belief in the rising 
again of the body deposited in the grave, the many (did 
they answer truly) could only reply, ' ' We inhaled it." They 
did not reach it by thorough, independent, untrammeled 
investigation. The following inquiry seeks to sift the mat- 
ter to the bottom. Scripture is taken as guide. Scripture 
is found to teach a wholly other aradradiS — rising — from 
that which has been so generally inhaled, but yet is so diffi- 
cult for the thinker of to-day, even helped by Christian 
faith, to adopt. A real rising is taught in the Scriptures, 
but a rising not drawing heavily % on faith (as the inhaled 
tenet), in no way repugnant to reason, in complete harmony 
(in the direct line, in fact,) with the advanced scientific 
thought of the day. 

The author hopes that the present inquiry may relieve 
some who have been oppressed by the difficulties involved 
in the ordinary method of conceiving of the resurrection. 

E. NISBET. 
Kock Island, III., June 11th, 1876. 



CONTENTS. 



L 

PAGE. 

Intbodtjctoby. , 15 

n. 

HlSTOBY OF THE DOCTEINE 17 

HI. 

Signification in Classical Geeek of avadradi} . i . . 28 

IV. 
New Testament Signification of avadradi} 34 

y. 

Do the Atoms of the Gbave Body Enteb into the 

Futtjbe Body ?. 45 

VI. 
Philosophical Difficulties to the Identity of the 

Gbave and Futube Bodies 48 

VII. 

Abgument feom Analogy 60 

VILL 

Pebsonal Identity 63 

. IX. 

The avadradi} Body — "What? Whence? When? 71 

I X. 

Chbist's Kesubeection Body 84 

fa 



yi # CONTENTS. 

XI. 

PAGE. 

New Propekties of Atoms Evidence of New Essence 90 

xn. 

What comes, then, of : "I well kaise htm tjp at 

the Last Day? " 92 

xm. 

What comes, then of: "The Redemption of Oue 

Body?" 95 

XIV. 

Characteristics of the ava6ra6i% Body 100 

XY. 
' ' He that believeth on me Hath eternal life .... Ill 

XVI. m 
Conclusion 119 



INTEODUCTION 



The following treatise is a commendable effort 
to apply the established principles of science to 
one department of revealed truth. The ivords, 
like the works of God, are fixed ; but new studies 
in each department of his truth develope advanc- 
ing and harmonious interpretations of both. 
Inasmuch as revealed truth must be expressed 
fay human language, and, therefore, only the 
words in use by any people can be employed in 
presenting God's word to man, ho truth can be 
presented in revelation which has not before- 
hand been, in its germ at least, presented in 
human thought and embodied in human lan- 
guage. How universally this common truth, 
existing prior to revelation, has been conceived,, 
appears in the fact that no language, even of the 
rudest tribes, has yet been found which could 
17) 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

not be made to express New Testament ideas. 
The application of this principle to the words 
-used to express the spiritual as well as the ma- 
terial changes, declared in the Old and New Tes- 
taments to be wrought on man, is as important 
as it is manifest. 

Nothing is more palpable in the conception of 
rude tribes, and even of children, than the words 
by which they distinguish four classes of exis- 
tences. Thus the four words, body, form, life, 
and mind, in all languages represent different 
conceptions ; the first of matter unintegrated, as 
dust and soil ; the second of matter aggregated 
or organized, as in crystals and plants ; the 
third of organisms self-moving and self-guided, 
as animals of every class ; and the fourth of the 
distinct rational and moral being seen on earth 
in man alone. The Hebrews represented these 
four distinct existences by ghaphar, liaiyah, ne- 
pliesli, and ruach; the Greeks by soma, physis, 
psyche, and pneuma ; and the Latins by corpus, 
anima, animus, and spirihis. Though not always 
used in their distinctive meaning — as in English 
body, life, soul, and spirit are not always em- 
ployed in their specific signification — yet, when 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

discrimination is designed, these words, in the 
classic as in the less elaborate languages, present 
each its own peculiar conception. 

The Hebrew of the Old and the Greek of the 
New Testament illustrate the usage thus indi- 
cated. The word nephesh, employed about 
eight hundred times in the Old Testament, refers 
to the self-moving, self-guiding power exhibited 
by both animals and man in providing for bodily 
wants ; but it is never applied to unembodied 
spirits, such as angels and the Divine Being?" 
On the other hand, the word ruaoh, employed 
nearly four hundred times, though often used of 
the " wind," is the only word used to designate 
pure spiritual existence, as that of angels and of 
God. The only apparent departure from this 
usage, found Eccles. in. 21, is not even an ex- 
ception proving the rule, it is an illustration of 
the rule ; for first, the higher life is affirmed of 
man and denied of animals in the contrasted 
words " upward " and " downward ; " second, the 
word "know" refers not to the fact, but to the 
explanation of the fact (see Eccles. xi. 5, as 
Solomon's own confirmation of his usage), the 
fact, as just seen, being affirmed ; and third, the 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

fact is re-stated directly afterwards, Eccles. xn. 7. 
A kindred discrimination between psyche and 
pnenma may be traced in the New Testament. 
In the first place, the Greek translation of the Old 
Testament, quoted by the New Testament writers, 
makes the distinction made by the Hebrews, the 
translators generally rendering nephesh by psyche, 
and ruach by pneuma ; and in the second place, 
the usage of classic Greek, from which elaborate 
language the Divine Spirit saw fit to select the 
carefully chosen words of completed revelation, 
seems to guide the inspired penman of the Gos- 
pel. The word psyche is used over one hundred 
times. In about half these cases it is rendered 
" life," and the other half " soul ; " in two cases 
it is translated "mind ; " in two " heart ;" and in 
two it is made an emphatic pronoun equivalent 
to " self." In a few cases, e. g. } Mark veil 36, it 
may be used without discrimination for the im- 
mortal nature in man, though this is doubtful ; 
in two or three cases, as Acts n. 31, Rev. vi. 9, 
and xx. 4, it refers to an existence of man after 
the death of the body, to which cases the author 
of this treatise refers ; while always, when directly 
contrasted with pneuma, or its equivalent word, 



INTBODUGTIOK \\ 

as in Math. xxii. 37 ; 1 Thess. v. 23 ; Heb. tv. 
12, it refers to that existence in man which is 
common to him and the animals, and which has 
as its office the care of the body. The adjective 
psycliikos, employed six times, in keeping with 
the above usage of the noun, is rendered four 
times "natural," and twice " sensual ; " in each 
case being placed in contrast with the concep- 
tion of the " spiritual." The word pneuma, used 
about one hundred times, once employed for the 
" wind " in its root meaning (John in. 8), is uni- 
versally applied to rational spiritual existence, 
alike that of man, of angels, and of the Divine 
Being ; while the adjective pneumatikos, is used 
with the same discrimination ; such contrasts as 
are found 1 Cor. n. 13, James in. 15, and 
Jude 19, specially indicating the thought of the 
New Testament writers. 

This analysis of the usage of distinctive terms 
in the languages of the Greek and Hebrew 
original Scriptures may serve to aid the 
reader in tracing the carefully elaborated argu- 
ment presented in the treatise which follows. I 
have read the treatise with interest. So far as 
the material nature of the resurrection-body is 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

concerned it accords with the results of modern 
scholarship. The argument is exhaustive ; and 
its conclusions are sound in principle, even where 
ike fact is from the nature of the subject inferen- 
tial. 

To whatever conclusion the perusal of this 
treatise may lead any inquirer as to the word 
anastasis, he will certainly be repaid for the study 
of this much discussed subject now interesting 
bible-students. 

G. W. Samson. 

New Toek. 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



" The strain of the Last Judgment," ascribed 
by the earlier Fabricius to Tertullian, sings thus 
of the resurrection of the bodies of the dead : 

" At last disturbed are 
The clouds, and the stars move and quake from height 
Of sudden power. When thus He comes, with voice 
Of j)otent sound, at once throughout all realms 
The sepulchres are burst, and every ground 
Out-pours bones from wide chasms, and opening sand 
Outbelches living peoples ; to the hair 
The members cleave ; the bones inwoven are 
With marrow ; the entwined sinews rule 
The breathing bodies ; and the veins 'gin throb 
With simultaneously infused blood ; 
And from their caves dismissed, to open day 
(15) 



16 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

Souls are restored, and seek to find again 
Each its own organs, as at their own place 
They rise. wondrous faith ! Hence every age 
Shoots forth ; forth shoots from ancient dust the host 
Of dead. Regaining light, they rise again — 
Mothers, and sires, and high souled youths, and boys, 
And maids unwedded ; and deceased old men 
Stand by with living souls ; and with the cries 
Of babes the groaning orb resounds." 

Later monkish mediaeval book-embellishing 
pictures, embody to the eye this same concep- 
tion of the resurrection scene ; the bodies are ex- 
hibited in different stages of extrication from the 
earth. Sculpture and painting in all ages repre- 
sent the dead rising from their graves. And our 
own Young sings : 

"Now charnais rattle ; scattered limbs, and all 
The various bones, obsequious to the call, 
Self-moved advance ; the neck perhaps to meet 
The distant head ; the distant head the feet. 
Dreadful to view ! see, through the dusky sky 
Fragments of bodies in confusion fly, 
To distant regions journeying, there to claim 
Deserted members and complete the frame." 

That the identical atoms of the body at death 
should rise again and enter into the constitution 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 17 

of the future glorified body, was early the pre- 
vailing belief of the church, and has ever con- 
tinued the prevailing belief, 



II. 

HISTOEY OF THE DOCTEINE. 

Herodotus tells ns that the Egyptians " were 
the first to broach the opinion, that the soul of 
man is immortal, and that when the body dies, 
it enters into the form of an animal which is 
born at the moment ; thence passing on from 
one animal to another, until it has circled 
through the forms of all the creatures wilich 
tenant the earth, the water, and the air, after 
which it enters again into a human frame, and is 
born anew. The whole period of the transmi- 
gration is (they say) three thousand years." 

The Egyptologist, Wilkinson, calls this doc- 
trine of the immortality of the soul, " The great 
doctrine of the Egyptians, and their belief in it 



13 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

is everywhere proclaimed in the paintings of the 
tombs. * * * Old, too, in Egypt, were the Py- 
thagorean notions that nothing is annihilated ; 
that it only changes its form, and that death is 
reproduction into life, typified by the figure of 
an infant at the extremity of an Egj^tian tomb, 
beyond the sarcophagus of the dead." 

Perhaps the uniting of those two ideas — the 
immortality of the soul and the conservation of 
everything once existing — with a third, the em- 
balming and careful preservation of the bodies 
of the deceased — has led some to the belief that 
the Egyptians taught the reinhabiting of the 
body by the soul — the resurrection of the 
body. But it is quite doubtful whether the em- 
balming and careful preservation of the bodies 
of the loved departed were at all connected with 
any thought of a future occupancy of the body 
by the soul, were, indeed, anything more than 
simply a service of affection bestowed on 
a form still held dear. They preserved the 
bodies of cats, hawks, bugs, crocodiles, monkeys, 
bulls, with as great care as they did those of men. 
We cannot well believe that they looked for a 
bodily resurrection of all these creatures. 



DOES TEE BIBLE TEACH, IT? 19 

Furthermore, the entire human body was not 
preserved. — simply the outer form. The body 
was eviserated, the brains were also removed 
This militates against the theory of Egyptian 
belief of the reinhabiting of the body by the 
soul — the resurrection of the body. Herodotus, 
indeed, speaks of souls which should " enter 
anew a human frame," but tells us that they 
should do so in the way in which in their 
previous transmigrations they had already 
entered into various brute forms, not passing 
into the mature form of a brute out of which life 
had* departed, but into the form of a brute "born 
at the moment ; " so, when human souls enter 
" again a human frame," they do not, in the 
Egyptian conception, enter a cast-off body, from 
which life has departed — return to and reinhabit 
the human frame in which they had previously 
lived — the mummy, but they become clothed 
/" anew with a human frame " in the way in 
which they were at first clothed with that frame, 
viz., by birth as an " infant." 

Although the resurrection of the body has been 
claimed to be an Egyptian tenet, yet the probabil- 
ity is that the Egyptians did not hold such belief. 



20 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

The resurrection of the body was in a manner 
taught by the ancient Hindoos and the latef 
Stoics, in their common tenet, that the great 
universe cycles are ever recurring identical re- 
petitions — in them appear the same physical 
combinations, and the same creature life encased 
in the same bodies. 

The disciples of Zoroaster maintained the 
resurrection of the body on grounds not fatalis- 
tic, as the Hindus and Stoic ; but by triumph of 
the good Ormuzd over the evil Ahriman, and* 
the consequent deliverance by the power of Or- 
muzd of all souls from hell, and their reinhabiting 
of the identical bodies they formerly possessed. 
While some claim that Zoroaster flourished 
in the sixth century, B. c, others thrust him 
back of this thousands of years. 

Among the Greeks we find the idea of the 
resurrection of the body broached — with a de- 
sire that it be true — by a philosopher and poet 
of Miletus, in the sixth century B. c. This 
Greek says : " It is not good that the admirable 
harmony which appears in the constitution of 
men should be entirely dissolved. We hope 
therefore, that the remains of the dead will come 



DOES TEE EIBLE TEACH IT? 21 

forth, from the earth, and return to the light." 
Yet, although we find such utterance in a Greek 
philosopher, Greek philosophy in its main drift 
was thoroughly antagonistic to the tenet of the 
resurrection of the body, — Plato regarded the 
body as a prison of the soul (that divine ray in 
man), whose, touch was polluting, and only by 
separation from which could the soul attain per- 
fection. 

We have nothing of the resurrection of the 
body in the Pentateuch. Jewish tradition, early 
Christian authority, and recent scholarship (e. g., 
Dr. T. J. Conant), unite in ascribing the author- 
ship of Job to Moses. The celebrated passage 
(xix. 25), in this ancient book, " I know that my 
Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
latter day upon the earth ; and though after my 
skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh 
shall I see God," has been regarded in the popu- 
lar mind as pointing to the resurrection of the 
body. This interpretation of the passage has 
arisen from its erroneous rendering in our ver- 
sion. In our day the passage is very differently 
translated, and modern scholarship denies here 
any reference to the resurrection of the body. 



22 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY; 

Of our version's expression, " In my flesh shall 
I see God," Dr. Conant says : " ( In my flesh/ 
was, in the early English versions, adopted from 
the Latin Vulgate, and is no expression of the 
Hebrew." Conant translates : " After this my 
skin is destroyed, and without my flesh shall I 
see God." Neither the ancient Jewish teachers, 
nor Christ, nor the apostles, ever appeal to this 
passage as proof of a resurrection of the body. 
Says Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel : " There is 
nothing in this passage in any way relating to 
the resurrection, nor doth it appear that any of 
the Hebrews ever understood it in such a sense." 
Isaiah's words (xxvr. 19, of eighth century 
B. a), " Thy dead men shall live, together with 
my dead body shall they arise," are thus trans- 
lated by Barnes : " Thy [Jehovah's] dead shall 
live again, the dead bodies of my [Israel's] 
people shall arise ; " the two clauses are simply 
an ordinary Hebrew parallelism ; and, as Barnes 
rightly claims, we have here no promise of a 
resurrection of the body, but simply promise of 
the rising of Israel from national depression — 
death, to national prosperity — life. The same is 
to be said of Ezekiel's vision of dry bones 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 23 

(xxxvn. ch., sixth century B. c.), not a resurrec- 
tion of the body is here prophesied of, but a 
civil reviving — renewal of life national. 

Not even in that of Daniel (fifty years later 
than Ezekiel), is the resurrection of the body 
necessarily implied, (xii. 2), " Many of them 
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." 
The persons sleeping — i. e., those individuals who 
once lived but have passed from the earth, shall 
appear again ; but there is nothing here which 
asserts the reinhabiting by the soul of the grave 
atoms. 

The passages which we have just examined 
are those most depended upon for proof that the 
Jewish canonical writings teach the resurrection 
of the body ; these passages fail to prove this. 

In the Babylonish captivity (Daniel's time), 
the Jews doubtless came in contact with the Zo- 
roastrian dogma of the resurrection of the body. 
And in apocryphal Maccabees (second century 
B. a), we find a Jew using language strongly in- 
dicative of such belief (vn. 10, 11) : "When he 
was required, he put out his tongue, and that 
right soon, holding forth his hands manfully, and 
said courageously : ' These I had from heaven, 



24 THE RESURRECTION OF TEE BODY, 

and for his laws I despised them, and from Him 
I hope to receive them again' " This points 
strongly in the direction of a belief in the 
speaker of a resurrection of the body. 

At the time of Christ the Jews generally held 
the tenet of the resurrection of the body — of 
some bodies. They did not hold the doctrine of a 
universal resurrection ; they believed the spirits of 
good men would be clothed again with the body, 
but that the spirits of bad men would remain un- 
clothed of the body in eternal punishment (Jose- 
phus "Wars, book n., ch. Yin., sec. 14. and Antq, 
xvm. 1, 3.) The Jews denied the Samaritans 
all share in the resurrection of the body. A 
large and respectable body of the Jews denied 
wholly the resurrection of the body, e. g,, the 
Sadducees and the Essenes. Thus the belief 
of that portion of the Jews w T ho held the resur- 
rection of the body was a belief only in a limited 
resurrection, while many of the Jews rejected 
the tenet wholly. The tenet was a matter of dis- 
pute among the Jews, there was for it to them 
no assured divine authority. Confirmatory this, 
of my claim, that canonical Scripture, up to the 
time of Christ, does not teach the resurrection 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 25 

of the grave body. The Pharisees (those " blind 
guides ") may have adopted the dogma from Zo- 
roastrianism while in Babylon, and made it a 
tenet of their sect — only after this does it appear 
unequivocally a Jewish belief. " It is certain/' 
says Mosheim, " that the ancestors of those Jews 
who lived in Christ's time had brought, from 
Chaldea and the neighboring countries, many ex- 
travagant and idle fancies, which were utterly 
unknown to the original founders of the nation ; " 
and may not this dogma of the rising of the 
flesh from the grave be such an impor- 
tation, and to be classed with their absurd 
superstitions concerning the divine nature, in- 
visible powers, magic, the Cabala ? The simple 
existence or general prevalence of any dogma 
among the Jewish people is no evidence of its 
divine origin— does not obligate us to receive it. 
This prevalent Jewish belief at the time of Christ 
in the resurrection of the body may be as wholly 
without divine authority, and as wholly fallacious 
as that other even more prevalent Jewish belief 
of that day — the Messiah shall come a mighty 
temporal Prince, shall free us from the Eoman 
yoke, shall make our Palestine Jerusalem the joy 
and the glory of the whole earth. 2 



26 THE RESURRECTION OF TBE BODY. 

We might expect that Jews embracing 
Christianity would carry this prevailing pharisee- 
sect tenet over with them into the primitive 
church; that they would do this, although not 
confirmed by anything in Christ's teachings, just 
as they carried over a gross Millenarianism, tenets 
about meats, purifyings, etc. But we find dis- 
tinct opposition to this tenet arising within the 
Christian pale as early as apostolic time in Gnos- 
ticism, many of whose sects were founded by 
Jews ; this again indicative that to the Jew the 
tenet had no divine authority, and indicative, 
also, that in apostolic days among Christians the 
tenet was disputed, and by some rejected — -that 
as the tenet had not been divinely taught the 
Jew, so Christ had not taught it (at least, un- 
equivocally). 

The Anti-nicene Fathers (the Alexandrian ex- 
cepted), agree with Tertullian's utterance : "The 
flesh shall rise again, wholly in every man, in its 
own identity, in its absolute integrity." Irenseus 
takes literally Isa. lxv. 18, sq., Jer. xxxi. 10, sq. 

The immediate Post-nicene Fathers, Jerome 
and Augustine, maintain the literal rising of 
the body. "We shall receive back our hair, says 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 27 

Jerome, and the then bodies, " Habent denies, 
ventrem, genitalia" Augustine at first just escap- 
ing from anti-resurrection Manicheism, shrank 
from these gross views, claiming in his " Enchi- 
ridion " that in the resurrection the body would 
be "no more flesh and blood, but only body," 
something "lucent, spiritual, ethereal." Later, 
in his " Retraction/ ' he inclined to the more 
sensuous view. 

From the times of Jerome and Augustine the 
literal resurrection of the body in its totality, 
although meeting with opposition, was regard- 
ed the established orthodox doctrine. The great 
body of the mediaeval scholastics supported it, 
opposition was only sporadic. The sects of the 
Bogomiles and Catherists of the twelfth century 
rejected the tenet. To-day this is the prevalent 
view of the Christian church. Our query now 
is : Has this view divine authority ? We have 
already found that the Old Testament Scriptures 
fail to sustain it ; what say the New ? 



y 



28 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY; 

in. 

SIGNIFICATION IN CLASSICAL GBEEK OF ava6r??di$. 

Oue Anglican-latin word " resurrection," the 
usual rendering of avadrr/6i$, is not the Greek 
word's synonym. The primary resurgo and 
avidrffjui, from which these words are derived, 
are not equivalents. Resurgo fundamentally 
contains through "re," the word "again," and 
means, rise again, as if something had been 
once standing, was fallen, but shall rise again ; 
ava in ari6rrj}xi does not primarily nor chiefly im- 
ply " again," its radical signification is, up, upon, 
opposed to Kara, clown, downwards ; in compo- 
sition it means radically and chiefly, up. And 
thus avi6rr})ii is not, as resurgo, rise again, but 
in its radical signification and prevailing use is 
simply (trans.), to make to stand up, rise up, 
(intrans.), to stand up, rise. 

This noted, at once sweeps away the changes 
which have been rung from Tertullian's time to 
our own, on that combination; " Resurrectio 



DOES TEE BIBLE 1EACH IT? 29 

mortuorum." Says Tertullian : " " These two ' 
words are prompt, decisive, clear. As to the 
word c resurrection wherever I hear of it impend- 
ing over a human being, I am forced to inquire 
what part of him has been destined to fall, since 
nothing can be expected to rise again, unless it 
has first been prostrated. " So Dick : " The very 
word " resurrection/' and the corresponding [?] 
term avadradit, both [?] signify the rising and 
standing up of something which had fallen or lain 
down ; and if it is a different body from the pres- 
ent in which men shall hereafter be clothed, a 
word has been chosen by the inspired writers [?] 
which conveys a fallacious idea. This single 
argument, I think, is conclusive for the identity of 
the grave and the resurrection bodies [!] " (So 
also Methodius, Pearson et alii.) 

But even grant avadradit radically and preva- 
lently includes the idea of rising again, the argu- 
ment predicated upon this signification of the 
word for the resurrection of the body, is not 
necessarily sound ; the " again " may refer to the 
re-appearance or rising again of the person whom 
death has removed from us, or, as we sometimes 
express it, "laid low ; " and this without assert- 



30 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

ing, or in any way necessarily implying, that the 
person when he should re-appear — rise again — to 
our vision, should be clothed in the identical 
atoms which we saw laid away in the grave. 

In the ordinary primitive classical use of 
avadradis, as also of qlyi6tiij.ii, we find simply 
the idea of rising. These were the words used in 
common parlance to express this thought, e. g. 
rise to leave a place, out of respect, to speak, to 
act. It may also mean (although this rarely in 
comparison with its other significations) rise from 
the dead. But when used in this latter sense, 
there is not necessarily contained in the word it- 
self any reference whatever to the rising of the 
body ; the word simply expresses the idea of ris- 
ing, and gives no hint whatever that that which is 
to rise had ever fallen, nor what that is which is 
to rise ; this must be decided simply and solely 
by the connection in which the word is used, not 
from the intrinsic signification of the word. 

Query, then, when a classical writer used of 
old avadratiis of the dead — vexpoi — what precise 
conception was in the mind of the one using it ? 
what was thought of as that which should rise ? 
whose ava.6roc6i) should take place ? 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 31 

In artictdo mortis there goes forth, according 
to Homeric conception, from the visible human 
form, a something which should still exist. That 
something Homer names i/*vx*?) — it escapes from 
the body through the "fence of the teeth," or 
through a wound. The ipvxv lives in Hades of 
form exactly resembling the bodily form which it 
has escaped, — friends in Hades thus recognize 
each other. The tyvxy in Hades has also the same 
idiosyncrasy as the person on earth, hence it 
still follows the same pursuits as on earth. The 
ipvxai have ethereal shadowy forms — bodies — 
which human embraces cannot retain. The ^vxrj 
in Hades is the person who has passed out of and 
left the flesh body behind — the person as he shall 
ever continue to exist. " It is quite plain," says 
Plutarch, " that Homer regarded the soul [the 
ipvxy] and nothing else as the man." The ipvxy 
speaks, drinks, hunts, may appear to a yet flesh- 
embodied man. In all this it is still simply flesh- 
disrobed, ethereal, shadowy ^xn. And when 
Homer says that after death such or such a per- 
son rose (avidr :), his conception is simply, that 
the ethereal ipvq>rj which passed out of the flesh- 
body at death and has in similar form been living 



32 THE RESURRECTION OF TEE BODY. 

in Hades, rose ; this is his thought, this and 
nothing more. "When at death the ipvxv passes 
out of the flesh-body, it, in Homeric thought, 
passes out forever— it never again returns to the 
flesh-body to inhabit it. Thought of the t^vxv re- 
turning after an interval to its corrupted and 
scattered cast-off flesh, and clothing itself anew 
in those once-worn material atoms, never even 
gleamed in Homer's mind. 

Now ava6ra6i5 being in classic Greek simply the 
synonym in common parlance of our "rise," 
— not at all necessarily expressing a rising into a 
condition of existence once possessed but lost, — 
not necessarily referring in the remotest way to 
the rising of the body from the grave, this not 
implied even when the word is used of the dead's 
rising — but this utterly repugnant to any classic 
use of the word, (all this being the case,) when 
we find ava6ra6t% in the New Testament used of 
the rising of the dead — vexpoi — we cannot from 
the intrinsic signification of the word, nor from 
its classic use decide that it refers to the rising 
of the grave bodies, much less can we claim 
that it asserts the re-inhabiting of the grave 
bodies by the vexpoi. And so Paul (1 Cor. 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 33 

15,) in perfect accord with this, although unhes- 
itatingly affirming the avadradi} of the vexpoi 
(Homer's ipvxat), yet regards as wholly an open 
question: "With what kind of bodies shall 
these vexpoi — ipvxai, Hadean persons, rise, ap- 
pear ? " His question does not necessarily imply 
the remotest reference to the grave body. 

Would we, then, come as we ought to the ex- 
amination of what is Said of the avadradi} of 
the dead in the New Testament, we are to rid 
our mind of much that we have been accustom- 
ed to regard necessarily implied of this avadradi$ 
in our word " resurrection." We are to cast this 
word " resurrectio " and its implications out of 
our mind altogether. There is no such word 
used of the dead in the New Testament ; the 
word there used is our simple " rising." 
2* 



34 THE BESTJRRECTION OF TEE BODY. 

IV. 

NEW TESTAMENT SIGNIFICATION OF avadradis 

In the New Testament we find avadradis and 
ari6r??jui used in common parlance (as in the 
classics), in the simple sense, viz., "rising," 
"rise" or "raise," and this with no reference 
whatever to the dead, e. g., Luke n. 34, " He is 
set for the fall and rising [avadradiv] of many 
in Israel;" Math. ix. 9, (of the apostle rising to 
follow Christ), "And he arose [avadras] and 
followed him," xxn. 24; "And he shall raise up 
[avadrydei] seed to his brother" (c. /., Mark in. 
26, and x., 1., Acts vil, 18). 

When aradradis is used in the New Testa- 
ment to express some peculiar state or condition 
of the dead, what is the thought of the writer ? 

Says Dr. D wight : " The subject of this chap- 
ter (1. Cor. xv.), is the avadradis, or future exis- 
tence of man. This word, avadradis is common^ 
ly, but often erroneously, rendered ' resurrec- 
tion.' So far as I have observed, it usually 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 35 

denotes our existence beyond the grave. Its 
original and literal meaning is to stand up, or to 
stand again. As standing is the appropriate pos- 
ture of life, consciousness and activity, and lying 
down the appropriate posture of the dead, the 
unconscious, and the inactive, this word is not 
unnaturally employed to denote the future state 
of spirits, who are living, conscious, active 
beings. Many passages of Scripture would have 
been rendered more intelligible, and the thoughts 
contained in them more just and impressive, 
had this word been translated agreeably to its 
real meaning, e. g., Math, xxn. 23, ' Then came 
to him the Sadducees, who say there is no re- 
surrection,' ava6ra6i^, that there is no future 
state, or future existence of mankind. In con- 
formity with the Jewish law of marriage, they 
declare seven brothers to have married, succees- 
sively, one wife, who survived them all. They 
then ask : "Whose wife shall she be in the resur- 
rection, irt the ava6ra6is, m the future state? 
They could not suppose that she would be any 
man's wife in the resurrection, a momentary 
e^ent, and of such a nature as to forbid even 
the supposition that the relations of the present 



36 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY; 

life could be of the least possible importance 
or be regarded with the least possible attention, 
during its transitory existence. Our Saviour 
answers them : ' In the resurrection, or as it 
should be rendered, in the future state, they 
neither, etc. But as touching the resurrection of 
the dead, or as it ought to be rendered, the 
future existence of those who are dead, have ye 
not read that which was spoken unto you by 
God ; I am the God of Abraham, etc. ? God is 
not the God of the dead, but of the living.' 
This passage, were we at any loss concerning the 
meaning of the word avadradis, determines it 
beyond dispute. The proof that there is an 
ava6za6i$ of the dead, alleged by our Saviour, 
is the declaration of God to Moses, I am the 
God of Abraham, etc., and the irresistible truth, 
that God is not the God of the dead, but of the 
living. The consequence is, that Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, were living at the time when 
this declaration was made. Those who die 
therefore, live after they are dead, and this future 
life is the avatiradis, concerning which there 
was so much debate between the Pharisees and 
Sadducees ; which is proved by our Saviour in 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 37 

this passage, and which is universally denoted 
by this term, avadradi$, throughout the New 
Testament. Nothing is more evident than that 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had not risen from 
the dead : and that the declaration concerning 
them is, therefore, no proof of the resurrection 
[as now usually conceived of]. But it is certain 
that they were living beings, and, therefore, this 
passage is a complete proof of life after death, 
[that there is what the Sadducees denied, and 
what Christ's argument proves, a future state of 
existence to the person, an avadradis]" 

The avadradi% is the thing mentioned as 
having been denied by some of the Corinthian 
Christians. See v. 12 and context : " How say 
some among you, that there is no resurrection, 
no future life, or existence of the dead ? " To 
remove this error from that church, and to pre- 
vent its existence ever afterwards, was, obviously 
the design of St. Paul in writing this chapter. 
Accordingly he shows its absurdity in the first 
thirty-four verses, and with equal success eluci- 
dates and proves the contrary doctrine [viz., 
that there is a future life]. In the remainder of 
the chapter he dwells extensively on the nature 



38 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

of the body with which the dead shall be 
invested. 

Dr. Campbell also translated avadradis in 
Math. xxn. 23, " Future life ;" and he says : 
" Agreeably to the original import, rising from a 
seat is properly termed aradzadis ; so is awak- 
ing out of sleep, or promotion from an inferior 
condition. In this view, when applied to the 
dead, the word denotes, properly, no more than a 
renewal of life to them, in whatever manner this 
happen. The version here given of avadvadis 
[viz., future life], is the only version which makes 
our Lord's argument appear pertinent and lev- 
eled against the doctrine he wanted to refute." 
Campbell further says : " According to Josephus, 
the immortality of human souls, and the transmi- 
gration of the good, seems to have been all 
that the Jews comprehended in the phrase 
avadradi% tgdv vexpcov [rising of the dead.] " 
This is a stronger position even than mine already 
expressed ; but this may perhaps be true of the 
learned, and so we find in accordance with this 
statement of Dr. Campbell, that the Rabbins 
use in speaking of the future of the just, PTWU 
reviviscentia, avafiicodi*,, revive, live, 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 39 

Even that utterance of the Jew, Martha, u I 
know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection 
[avad.~]; at the last day," we cannot certain- 
ly affirm includes the rising of the atoms of the 
sepulcher body ; it may mean simply that Laza- 
rus shall then live. But if her thought was that 
the identical atoms laid away in the tomb should 
rise, this only expresses a Jewish belief ; it is not 
inspired teaching. 

When Paul preached at Athens, it is said: 
"When they heard of a resurrection [avad.~\, 
of the dead, some mocked," while others said, 
"Thou bringest strange things to our ears." It 
is not at all necessary to think that in Paul's 
preaching of an avadradt% of the dead, that he 
must necessarily have preached the rising of the 
body from the grave. We are told that some of 
those disputing with him were Epicureans and 
Stoics. Now, both these sects denied a future 
life (in the Christian sense), in any form, so that 
were we to take avadradis in the sense given by 
Dwight and Campbell above, viz : future life, 
here is all that is needed to make the Epicurean 
" mock," and the Stoic exclaim, " Thou bringest 
strange things to our ears." 



40 THE RESURRECTION OF TEE BODY. 

Says John (1 Epis. v., 12) : " He that hath the 
Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of 
God hath not life " [is dead,] so Christ (John 
Y. 24, 25) : " He that believes on Him that sent 
me hath everlasting life * * * * has passed out 
of death into life. The hour is coming and now 
is, when the dead [yexpoi] shall hear the voice 
of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." 
So Paul (Ephe. v. 14), says : " Awake thou that 
sleepest, and rise from the dead [avadra. en 
tgdv vExpcov], and Christ shall give thee light." 
We thus find distinctly recognized rex pot (dead) 
not in the graves, and an avadradi> (rising) 
having no connection with grave bodies, vexpoi, 
the dead in sin — spiritually dead, and an avadvadis 
referring to the rising of the spiritual man to a 

life in Christ, eyco eijui 77 avadradiS xoa r/ ^oorj 

(I am the rising and the life), says Christ, This 
avadradis, in its initial stage, takes place the 
moment Christ is closed with and enters into 
the person as germ of eternal life. And thence 
onward now — man and the seed of God in him 
working together — the avccdradu is a continu- 
ous process, whose completion lies in this life 
ever future to the man, and shall only reach the 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 41 

final, perfecting crisis after the tie with the now 
body is severed. So we find Paul in Philippians 
declaring that he was not " already perfect," had 
not yet attained the completed avadradi}, but 
he was counting "all things refuse," and was 
"pursuing onward," "if by any means I may 
attain to the resurrection — avatiradis — from the 
dead." To refer this expression of Paul to the 
rising of the body at the last day, is precluded 
by his (v. 12) : " Not as though I had already 
attained." Had he been speaking of the resurrec- 
tion of the body at the last day, such caveat to 
his readers would have been a simple imperti- 
nence. 

In the New Testament, ava6ra.6i% uniformly 
stands in the Greek where in the English we 
find "resurrection;" (except Math, xxvn., 53, not 
speaking of the future). But our finding clearly 
is, that aradzadis does not necessarily, by its in- 
trinsic meaning, neither by its connections in 
several passages of scripture, imply a future 
rising of the grave body and its reinhabiting by 
the soul ; it is used in speaking of a condition of 
the dead, when the body does not at all come 
into thought. If, then, the doctrine of the rising 



42 THE BESTJBBECTION OF THE BODY, 

of the grave body and its reinhabiting by the 
soul, is taught in the New Testament, it must be 
taught in some other way than by the mere asser- 
tion that in the future the redeemed person shall 
be subject to a state called ava6ra6i$. My claim 
is, that in no passage in the New Testament is 
avadratii} used in such connection as implies 
necessarily the rising of the grave body and its 
reinhabiting by the soul. In that future state of 
the dead called avadradis, they have bodies, but 
it is an open question : " "What hind of bodies ? 



DO THE ATOMS OF THE GKAVE BODY ENTER INTO 
THE FUTURE BODY? 

Let a person without any preconceptions — 
with a " white paper " mind — read the only 
chapter in the Bible which deals professedly 
with this question (1 Cor. xv.), would he find any 
statement there indicative that the grave body is 
to be raised, and its material constitute the body 



DOES TEE BIBLE TEACH IT? 4.3 

of its future ? I think not. Paul, its writer, 
gives a categorical negative, and to set the mat- 
ter at rest forever, says, (37) : " Thou sowest not 
that body which shall be." 

Let us examine this famous chapter. 

The writer evidently deals in the chapter with 
two questions. 

Previous to v. 35, Paul deals simply with 
the question of an avadradis — rising from the 
dead, life after death, a future existence ; at v. 
35 he begins to deal with a question merely inci- 
dental to an avadradis ; what kind of a body 
have persons in the avadradi$ — future life ? A 
careful reading of the first thirty-four verses in 
connection with v. 35, will clearly indicate that 
my division of the chapter is correct, that the 
35th verse begins a new topic, that avadradis in 
the previous verses means simply future life, 
without any reference to the material constitu- 
ting the body in that life. 

Verse 35, " But some one will say : How do 
the dead rise, and with what kind of body do 
they come ? " In this verse we have something 
brought out which it is important to note, viz : 
that vEupoi (dead), in the expression avadtadif, 



44 THE BESUBBECTION OF THE BODY. 

T. vexpcjv (rising of the dead), does not mean 
dead bodies, but persons ; otherwise we should 
make Paul say : " With what kind of bodies do 
the bodies come?" vexpoi (dead), is to be 
taken in the sense of persons ; in death our 
friends — these loved persons — pass away from 
us ; in the future they shall rise from their now 
invisibility, appear to us again ; when these per- 
sons do so rise — appear — what kind of a body 
shall they have ? Paul's question thus viewed, 
very clearly has no necessary reference whatever 
to the grave body ; it is simply a general question 
very indefinitely put. But in putting it there 
arose to his mind the person who was inclined 
to thrust forward the old Zoroastrian and Jewish 
tenet, that the material laid away in the grave 
constituted the body with which our friends 
should be clothed in the future — in the ava6ra6i%. 
And if the grave body shall constitute the body 
of the future, here were just the point where we 
should expect the apostle for all time to have 
set the matter at rest, by simply so declaring. 
But passing strange, if such is the truth, is 
Paul's reply ! He declares the person who 
should ask such a question to have no mind, in- 



DOES TEE BIBLE TEACH IT? 45 

tellect : " Thou fool, thou sowest not that body 
that shall be." Our friends when they shall ap- 
pear to us— rise before our vision— are to have a 
body different in material from that laid in the 
grave, a body as different in material from that 
laid in tHe grave, as " bare " grain sown is from 
the risen stalk, leaves, blossom, fruit, — no identi- 
ty of atoms nor kind here. There are bodies per- 
taining to the sky, sun, moon, star ; so also are 
there bodies pertaining to the earth, trees, rocks, 
oceans ; as different as the heavenly bodies are 
from the earthly, so different shall the bodies of 
the future be from the bodies laid in the grave, — 
no identity of atoms nor kind taught here. 
There are bodies of bare grain and of stalk, leaf, 
blossom, fruit ; bodies heavenly and earthly ) 
bodies of men, beasts; fishes, birds ; bodies differ- 
ent in kind and material each from each ; but 
each has a body fitted for its own peculiar sphere 
of existence, — so also shall it be as to the bodies 
of our friends in the avadradis, compared with 
the bodies laid away in the grave — the future body 
and the grave body shall not be the same in kind 
nor material. Says Paul (v : 38) : " God gives 
to each of the seeds its own (to idiov, peculiar) 



46 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

body ," — man sown into this world is a ipvxiuov 
(animal) seed, and hence is sown and rises with 
a ipvxmov body — a body suited to his present 
conditions of life ; but when the believer is sown 
in the soil of the world unseen, he is sown a 
7tv8vjuarixov (spiritual) seed, and hence is sown 
and rises with a 7tvewariKov body — a body suited 
to the new conditions of his new life, — as differ- 
ent in material this latter body from the former, 
as the man's (seed's) present animal life and its 
conditions are different from the man's (seed's) 
future spiritual life and its conditions, — as differ- 
ent as the body of a fish (fitted for one sphere of 
life) is from the body of a bird (fitted for another 
sphere), as different in material as are the firma- 
ment bodies from the earthly bodies. 

"We thus find that the only passage in the bible 
which professes to answer the question : " What 
kind of bodies shall the bodies of the avadradi} 
be?" does not say that the atoms laid away in 
the grave shall rise and enter into the body of 
the future — does not say that the material of the 
body of the future shall be any way identical or 
connected with, or related to the atoms laid away 
in the grave — does not say that the two bodies 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 47 

are in any way the same. Further, while the v 
passage does not assert that the grave body will 
at a.11 rise, it leads us to believe just the contrary 
— to believe that the atoms of the grave body do 
not constitute the material of the future body : 
" Thou fool, thou sowest not the body that shall 
k e3 " — no more is the body of the avadradi^ the 
substance that thou puttest into the grave, than 
is the "bare" kernel of wheat that thou sowest 
the same substance that rises up before thine 
eyes in stalk, leaves, blossom, fruit. The per- 
sons of the avadradis leave the grave body — fit 
ted for the conditions of this life— utterly and 
forever behind, as the butterfly the cocoon ; and, 
as the butterfly, they rise with a new body fitted 
for the conditions of a new and higher life — this 
new body identical neither in kind nor substance 
with that laid away in the grave. 

The English scholar may perhaps suppose from 
the reading of verses 42 and 43 : " It is sown 
in corruption, it is raised in incorruption," etc : 
etc : that the " It " refers plainly to the grave 
body, and asserts its rising in " incorruption." In 
the Greek there is no "It" — "It" has been put 
in by the translators. Paul's thought as ex- 



48 TEE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

pressed by the Greek is simply this : " (a body) is 
sown in corruption, a body rises in incorruption 
— (a body) is sown in dishonor, a body rises in 
glory," etc ; etc ; — i. e., when our friends whose 
bodies we laid away in the grave, shallagain rise 
before our vision, their bodies shall be bodies in- 
corruptible, glorious. There is nothing here 
identifying the atoms of the two bodies. 



VI. 



PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFICULTIES TO THE IDENTITY OF 
THE GRAVE AND FUTURE BODIES. 

Difficulties to the identity of the grave and 
the future bodies, early arose to Christian think- 
ers. 

Athenagoras (second century, a. d.), deals with 
the difficulty of one man's body entering as compo- 
nent part into another man's body, e. g., in times 
of shipwreck one eats the other, so in ordinary 
cannibalism, so in grain grown on fields of bat- 
tle and nourished by the slain. He meets the 



B0E8 THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 49 

difficulty by an answer that no one will now ac- 
cept. He claims that all bodies are so arranged 
in their laws of nutrition by God, that matter 
suited to their nourishment is assimilated, while 
matter not suited to their nourishment is rejected, 
does not enter into the body as a part of itself. 
We cannot think that in God's economy one 
human body is suited to nourish another human 
body, therefore it is not assimilated if eaten, but 
rejected ! 

Augustine denies that it can be contended with 
any show of reason, that all the human eaten 
flesh is rejected and none assimilated. But his 
method of escaping the difficulty commends 
itself to our acceptance little more favorably 
than the reasoning he discards. He simply 
affirms : " That flesh shall be restored to the man 
in whom it first became human flesh. For it 
must be looked upon as borrowed by the other, 
and, like a pecuniary loan, must be returned to 
the lender ! " 

According to a Mohammedan tradition, as- 
similation in one case was prevented by the pre- 
caution of preventing the eating by the interven- 
tion of a miracle. " The prophet's uncle, Hamzah, 
3 



50 TEE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

having been slain by Hind, daughter of Atabah, 
the cursed woman cut out his liver and gnawed 
it with fiendish joy ; but lest any of it should 
become incorporated with her system and go to 
hell, the Most High made it as hard as stone ; 
and when she threw it on the ground, an angej 
restored it to its original nature and placed in 
the body of the martyred hero, that lion of God." 

This prevention miraple method is just about 
as reasonable as either of the other two ways, 
just mentioned (both miraculous), to obviate the 
difficulty. 

Still another way of obviating the difficulty 
has been suggested, viz : not all of the grave 
body rises and enters into the aradradis body, 
but only some indefinable (perhaps minute) por- 
tion of it, -enough to secure (in the popular use 
of the word), an identity, sameness, between the 
grave and the future bodies. 

Knapp thus states this view : " From all the 
parts of which our present body is composed, the 
most fit and the most noble will be chosen by 
God, and of these the heavenly body will be con- 
structed." Another thus states it : " Some in- 
visible compound of an annihilated body may 



DOES THE EIBLE TEACH IT? %\ 

hover, by a divine decree, around the site of 
death till it is wanted, sufficient to preserve the 
identity of the now and the future bodies." 
Others speak of a simple invisible indestructible 
germ of the body laid in the grave, which shall 
rise, and constitute the connecting link of iden- 
tity between the now and the future bodies. Some 
of the Jews maintained that the embryo princi- 
ple of the avadradts body, was a small, inde- 
structible, immortal bone of the now body, (some 
to-day claim this bone to have been the os coccy- 
gis). This bone was not regarded as a seed 
germ, producing from itself the future body by 
development, but as a nucleus around which the 
Messiah by miracle should gather the decom- 
posed flesh. The Mohammedans repeat this in 
their bone al ajib, Tertullian says : " The teeth 
are providentially made eternal to serve as the 
seeds of the resurrection." So on this germ theory, 
Dr. Nelson of to-day says : " Whether it will be 
a tenth, or twentieth, or an hunderdth part of our 
present body, which is to enter into the formation 
of the new, God has not chosen to tell us." 

This germ theory — a part only of the grave 
body rising and entering into the future body — 



52 TEE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY 

is still less able to be biblically supported than 
the theory of the entire body rising, — in favor of 
the latter some semblance of scripture argument 
may be offered ; in favor of the former not even a 
semblance. This germ theory is adopted, with- 
out any pretence of scriptural authority, simply 
from necessity, by those who abandon, from its 
grossness and philosophic difficulties, the enter- 
ing of the entire grave body into the constitution 
of the future body, while they yet seek to main- 
tain some show of identity between the body put 
into the grave and the future body. But if we 
leave on account of philosophic difficulties any 
part of the grave body behind, we may as well 
(for anything in scripture), leave the whole. This 
is the more consistent ground. Scripture gives not 
the least hint of a culling out of the best parts 
of the grave body from the inferior, the inferior 
parts to be left in the grave, the culled out parts 
to be worked up in constructing the heavenly 
body. This consistent ground (leaving the entire 
flesh body in the grave) in view of difficulties in 
the case, and in absence of any scriptural author- 
ity for the rising of the grave body, was that taken 
so early in Christian thought as Origen (third 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 53 

century, a. d.) : " "We do not, lie says, maintain 
that the body which has undergone corruption 
resumes its original nature, any more than the 
grain of wheat which has decayed returns to its 
former condition. But we do maintain, that as 
above the grain of wheat there arises a stalk, so 
a certain power [dynamic essence], is implanted 
in the body, which is not destroyed, and from 
which the body [of the avadradi^] is raised up 
inincorruption." Origen thus leaves behind the 
entire material of the grave body. Methodius 
says : " Origen thinks that the same flesh will not 
be restored to the soul, but that the form of each, 
according to the appearance by which the flesh is 
now distinguished, shall arise stamped upon 
another spiritual body, so that every one will 
again appear the same in form, and that this is 
the resurrection promised." And just to this po- 
sition do the difficulties in the case, (an absence 
of scriptural authority for the rising of the grave 
body), drive Christian thinkers of to-day. Says 
Dr. Hitchcock : "li is not necessary that the re- 
surrection body should contain a single particle 
of the body laid in the grave, if it only contain 
particles of the same kind, united in the same 



54 THE BESTJBBECTION OF THE BODY. 

proportion, and the compound be made to as- 
sume the same form and structure as the ma- 
terial body." So Dr. Hodge, (Theo. Ill, p. 777) 
says, for the sameness of our future and now 
bodies, " not a particle of the one need be in the 
other." This is simply giving up the whole 
question — abandoning the grave body forever to 
the grave, as ought to be done ; but ought not 
this be done fairly, openly, completely and with no 
higgling? And just this Dr. Hovey does (Bap. 
Quar., Oct. '67) : " The resurrection bodies of 
the saints may, or may not, derive the substance 
of which they are composed from the animal 
bodies which precede them. This appears to be 
a matter of indifference. In the case of Enoch, 
of Elijah, of Christ, and those believers who are 
still alive upon the earth at Christ's second com- 
ing, it is reasonable to suppose that the material 
of the glorified body is taken from the earthy 
body, but in the case of others, comprising a vast 
majority of mankind, such a derivation seems to 
be improbable, not to say impossible." So Pres. 
E. G. Eobinson says : " Few, if any, intelligent 
persons who have reflected at all on the doctrine 
of the resurrection, can, at this day, I think, sup- 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 55 

pose any part of the body laid in the grave is to 
rise with ns at our resurrection. No just concep- 
tion of personal identity requires it, even if the 
laws of matter did not teach us its simple impos- 
sibility." So Nitzsch says : " The body of those 
who are raised is not the corrupted nor the cor- 
ruptible one. The ever-becoming and transient 
material does not participate identically in the 
resurrection." 

The persons who contend so earnestly that 
all, or at least some part, of the grave body rises 
and enters into the composition of the future 
body, do so that they may retain the identity 
(in some sense) of the now and the future bodies ; 
this they think is necessary to a " resurrection," 
and, therefore, is demanded by scripture ; they 
also think it necessary that the whole man — soul 
body — which lived justly or unjustly, should re- 
ceive reward or suffer punishment. I have already 
sought to show that the Bible conception of the 
ava6radi5 does not imply identity of the grave 
and the future bodies. The Bible nowhere asserts 
that the " bodies " laid away in the grave shall 
arise, an avadradi} tody dGo/iaraov (rising of the 
bodies), is not a Bible expression. There is 



56 THE BESUBBECTIOF OF THE BODY, 

to be a rising, and there is to be an identity of 
something now present with something future, 
but that which the Bible asserts shall rise is the 
person ; and that in the present which is assert- 
ed in the Bible to be identical with something 
which shall be in the future, is the person ; the 
identity of the body which the person shall pos- 
sess in the future — the ava6ra6i^> — with the body 
laid in the grave, the Bible nowhere asserts, but 
very clearly asserts juso the contrary : " Thou 
fool, thou sowest not that body which shall be." 
The second argument urged by some for the rising 
and the reinhabiting of the grave body by the 
soul, viz. : that, having been partners in doing 
justly or unjustly in this life, so they should be 
partners in the future in reward or punishment, 
was early urged by Christian writers, so also by 
later, e. g., Athenagoras, Cyril, the Council of 
Trent, Pearson on the Creed, etc. Sifted this ar- 
gument is worthless. The body is laid away in 
the grave, it is dissolved into its elements, e. g. y 
sulphur, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxigen. Now, what 
semblance of reason is there in the assertion, 
that equality in the final distribution of rewards 
and punishments, that the honor of divine justice 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 57 

demands, that the very atoms of those uncon- 
scious elemental substances which happened to be 
in the man's body at the moment of his doing 
evil or well, be hunted for and thrust down to 
hell or lifted to heaven ? " Justice " is a misno- 
mer when applied to the dealing of God with 
any created thing other than a moral creature. 
But further, if the honor of divine justice de- 
mand that the atoms of the gases which happen- 
ed to constitute the man's body at death be 
hunted for and thrust down to hell or lifted to 
heaven, divine justice must also demand that all 
the atoms material which happened at any mo- 
ment to be in union with the spirit in the man's 
serving or sinning against God, be hunted up, 
united with the spirit in the avadradis and 
thrust down to hell or lifted to heaven. But you 
will see this would make a resurrection man have 
a very big body. What big men our forefathers 
will be, who lived eight or nine hundred years, 
and who, in their lifetimes, had and shed one 
hundred or more bodies ! What pigmies we men 
of this day shall then appear who shall not be 
able to claim more than half a dozen or a dozen 
bodies ! What little folks, compared with the ante- 



58 THE BESTJBRECTION OF TEE BODY. 

diluvians, our babies shall eternally be, who rise in 
the little frame we in tears laid so tenderly in 
the wee coffin ! But still another difficulty arises 
to this justice argument. " Chemistry now finds 
that only a small number of substances ever 
enter into the composition of animal bodies. The 
food of man consists of nitrogenized and non- 
nitrogenized substances. The latter are the ele- 
ments of respiration, the former alone comprise 
the plastic elements of nutrition, and they are 
few in number and comparatively limited in ex- 
tent. All life depends on a comparatively small 
quantity of matter. Over and over again, as the 
modeller fashions his clay, are plant and animal 
formed out of the same material. The particles 
that composed Adam's frame may, before the end 
of the world, have run the circuit of ten thousand 
bodies of his descendants." 

" 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave of 
thousands." Now, if the honor of divine justice 
require that each atom of gas as body united 
with a soul in sinning or doing well, be, in union 
again as body with that same soul, punished or 
rewarded, how shall it be arranged for the honor 
of divine justice for those atoms of gas, which 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 59 

have been united as body on earth with more 
than one spirit ? And especially how shall it be 
arranged for that poor little unconscious atom of 
gas, which, without any choice of its own, was on 
earth forced, by the simple continuity of cause 
and effect, to be at one time united with a spirit 
which shall forever dwell in darkness, and at 
another time with a spirit which shall forever 
dwell in light ? With which spirit, for the honor 
of divine justice, shall that atom of gas stand 
united in the avadratii} ? 

There is still another difficulty involved in the 
theory of the grave body constituting the ma* 
terial of the future body, viz., the cases of infants, 
of abortions, of very emaciated or very obesq 
bodies, of bodies deformed or maimed, etc., etc 
This difficulty was early felt, e. g., by Tertullian, 
Justin Martyr, Augustine. Tertullian simply as-r 
serts that divine power shall raise the body per- 
fect. Augustine says, that as to differences of 
stature when laid away in the grave, it does not 
follow that persons shall rise thus different, nor 
that the lean shall rise lean, or the fat with his 
former obesity ; he thinks that infants and abor- 
tions shall, by the marvelous operation of God 



60 THE BESUBBECTION OF TEE BODY. 

in the resurrection, attain that stature they 
should naturally have attained, had they lived. 
But this, Tertullian and Augustine say, is, in the 
first place, mere gratuitous assumption, and, in the 
second place, is a simple giving up of the main 
position, viz,, that the material of the grave body 
shall rise and constitute the material of the future 
body. According to this of Tertullian and Augus- 
tine, the body laid away in the grave and the fu- 
ture body are not identical in atoms, some have 
been increased, some diminished; the maimed 
and the deformed have had wholly new members 
added. A body of atoms, then, different from the 
atoms laid away in the grave is the ava6ra6i% 
body ; a different body then. 



VII. 

ARGUMENT FKOM ANALOGY. 

The usual (so claimed) analogies presented 
from nature for the rising again and the reinhabit- 
ing by the soul of the grave body, fail of being 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? Q\ 

analogies. That anything in nature may be le- 
gitimately presented as analogical to the rising 
of the grave body and its reinhabiting by the 
soul, there must be presented something in which 
life once was, from which life has been separated, 
to which life returns, and the two in union again 
become one animated existence. Nothing of this 
Sort is found in nature. 

The early Christian fathers delighted to refer 
to analogies (as they claimed them to be), of the 
resurrection of the body, found in nature, e. g., 
night and morning, winter, spring, autumn, set- 
ting and rising of sun, moon, stars, the phoenix. 
The phoenix is now conceded a myth. It was 
something very other to Tertullian: " Must men," 
he exclaims, "die once for all, while birds in 
Arabia are sure of a resurrection ! " The other 
things named, morning after night, etc., are in no 
sense analagous to the thing they are claimed to 
illustrate and confirm. Vegetation in autumn 
seems to die, and in spring seems to revive, have 
a resurrection. But this is a mere semblance, 
not a reality ; the herb root, flower bulb, the tree, 
were not dead, life was not separated from any 
of these things, life ever abode in them in these 



62 THE BESUBRECTION OF THE BODY. 

autumn and winter months, abode in them dor- 
mant ; there was not death, only sleep, and the 
genial warmth of the spring's sun melts the icy 
fetters with which the sleeper was bound, drives 
from him his numbness and dormancy, and sets 
in motion all the forces of life slumbering in the 
winter's chill. But let a tree be uprooted, let life 
utterly depart from it, let it be completely dead, 
be scattered in rotten atoms before the wind ; now 
let it begin to come atom to atom anew, to put 
on the tree form, anew to put forth bud, leaf, 
flower, branch, let it become again full of life, 
here we should find something analogous to the 
tiling we desire to illustrate and confirm, the 
rising from the grave of the dead body and its 
reinhabiting by the soul. But in all nature we 
have no such prodigy. "When a vegetable or an 
animal form is once devoid of life, that organism 
is never repossessed of life, it is a dead thing 
forever, there is for it no resurrection. The 
much used and much abused cocoon rising into 
the butterfly fails to be an analogy. Life was 
never separated from the cocoon ; it existed 
within under special conditions, and the butter- 
fly, passing out of and leaving behind the exuviae 



DOES TEE BIBLE 1EACH IT? 63 

(now severed froin life), of its preceding form, 
never comes back to them to clothe itself with 
them. " The law of all life is progress, not re- 
turn, ascent through future developments, not 
descents through the stages already traversed." 
So that rightly used as an analogy, the butterfly 
declares against the soul's ever retracing its steps 
in search of the exuviae of the grave for a re- 
clothing therein. These exuviae by the butterfly 
and human spirit alike, in the onward and up- 
ward movement of life, are left behind utterly 
and forever, never again to be reinhabited by the 
escaped life. 



VIII. 

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

Much confusion of thought, doubtless, has 
arisen from not noting that personal identity 
does not involve identity of the atoms of the 
body. If it did, we should not preserve our per- 
sonal identity two seconds ; for the atoms of our 



64 THE BESUBBECTION OF TEE BODY. 

body are in a continual flux, no two seconds are 
they the same. But yet it is a general apprehen- 
sion, that to be the same person there must be the 
same body. Says Athenogoras : " The same men 
must be formed anew. But it is impossible that 
the same men be reconstituted unless the same 
bodies are restored to the same souls." We be- 
lieve that we are the same person at fifty years 
of age that we were at twenty years of age, but 
of the body which we had at twenty we have not 
an atom at fifty ; indeed, we have in the interim 
shed our entire body several times. Identity of 
body in this life, then, we do not regard neces- 
sary to identity of person ; why should it be in 
the life beyond? 

While it is true that we recognize the person 
through the body, cognize his identity thus, yet 
this is only from the limitation of our faculties. 
Indeed, the face, through whose lineaments w T e 
recognize our friend after an eight years' separa- 
tion, is not the face we saw eight years before > 
it is wholly new material. Personal identity, per- 
sonality itself, do not at all lie in the body, in 
their ultimate substratum and abiding essence, 
they lie in something very other than the body ; 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 65 

they lie in that substance which is the abiding 
substratum of continuity of consciousness evi- 
denced in memory. This abiding substratum is not 
the body ; the given material in the man's body at 
any moment is not an abiding element in the man, 
it is ever in flux, and cannot, then, be in continuity 
substratum of continuity of consciousness in which 
lies personal identity — sameness of person. We 
expect the man living with us to-day, while main- 
taining his personal identity, shall yet change his 
body from time to time — both in its substance 
and its aspects — and that the body in its new ma- 
terial and new aspects shall reveal to us the ever 
varying developments in the life of the real per- 
sonality encased within it, of which it is the 
mere transitory garment ; e. g., the boyhood body 
is in material and aspects different from the in- 
fancy body, so the youth body differs from the 
boyhood body, the mature age body from the 
youth, etc. Each of these successive bodies is 
in no way identical in its atoms with the body 
which clothed the spirit in a previous and lower 
stage of development. And why may we not ex^ 
pect, when the genuine, ultimate seed lying at 
the root of all individuality, personality, identity, 



66 THE RESURRECTION OF TEE BODY. 

passes on to yet another stage of development 
in the future — the avadratiis — (a more marked 
wonderful, larger, upward step in life develop- 
ment than any previously taken), that at that 
point it shall pass out of (as the butterfly), and 
utterly and forever leave behind the material of 
the body with which it was clothed in this 
earthly stage of its life ; and as seed sown in a 
new stage of life and new conditions, and en- 
dowed with power (as in its ever changing earth- 
life stages), to clothe itself with a body suited to 
its new stage of life and new conditions, that it 
shall tabernacle, itself in a new body, the atoms 
of his body worn in his past earth-life stage of 
his development being utterly and forever left 
behind, just as is true of the boy-stage of the 
earth-life in reference to the atoms of the body 
worn in the infant-stage ? The spirit in its on- 
ward movement never returns in its earth-life to 
pick up the atoms of a body worn in a previous 
and lower stage of its life-development : why, 
contrary to all analogy in its own history, should 
it do so for the avad ra6i$ body ? This thought 
is in harmony with all the workings of Nature in 
the present, and all the rock records of geologi- 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 67 

cal worlds. Nature does not retrace her steps 
and reclothe herself in the old forms long ago 
cast aside, but, ever progressing, she clothes her- 
self in forms new and materials fresh. And as we 
believe that the earth-stage body is stamped by 
the spirit, receives its type, aspects, features from 
the spirit's informing force, carry this thought over 
into the other life ; a potency in the spirit, in the 
avadradis which shall build up about itself a 
body fitted to that stage of its existence, a body 
spiritual, and shall impress upon that body the 
features of that individuality which it did on the 
earth-body, and by which we recognized our 
friend in a continuous identity. "We have then 
what Origen of old claimed for that spiritual 
body, viz., the material of the grave-body shall 
be utterly and forever left behind, but yet the 
living being possessed within the casing of the 
earth-body a dynamic essence (A 0^05, as he 
terms it), which, passing out of the grave ma- 
terial, builds up around the spirit of new ma- 
terial a spiritual body, and " the form of each, 
according to the appearance by which the flesh 
is noA\ distinguished [that imprint of individuality 
received now on the body from the soul], shall 



68 TEE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. , 

arise stamped [by the same soul], upon a 
spiritual body, so that every one will again ap- 
pear the same in form." 

Query, What more to-day do we require for 
maintenance of the personal identity of our 
friends than just this here claimed for the person 
of the present and the future, viz., the same soul 
revealing itself to us in a body bearing the im- 
press of its individuality ? For assurance of the 
personal identity of our friend to-day, the identi- 
ty or not of the atoms of the body is nothing. 
All we require is simply that the matter at the 
moment constituting the body in its soul-giving 
impress, affirm that the same soul dwells within. 
Simply in the imprint of the individuality of our 
friend seen in the body material, we recognize 
the personal identity of our friend. As to the 
identity of the material atoms that at this mo- 
ment exhibit to us the imprint of our friend's in- 
dividuahty with certain atoms which did this at 
some past moment, we care not, and have no 
thought. When we cross over the river, let us 
see the soul-imprint of our friend on a spiritual 
body, the imprint we used to see here, the old- 
time individuality, patent once more, to assure 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 69 

ourselves of his personal identity, we shall not 
have to be assured that precisely the same atoms 
of sulphur, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxigen, carbon, 
we saw laid away in the grave, have all been 
hunted up, gathered together, and put into the 
body we now see revealing in its every lineament 
the old-time familiar features of our friend ! We 
shall not require this then, any more than, after 
an absence of years now, to be assured of our 
friend's identity we require that he have all the 
atoms in his body which he had in it when we 
left him, these atoms, and no others. 

Were we but able to grasp clearly, hold firmly, 
continously, this idea : " The identity of the vexpoi 
(dead), of the avadradi$ (future life), with the now 
persons, is in no sense dependent upon the union 
again of the spirit with the atoms of the body laid 
aside at death," we should rise at once out of much 
difficulty, in which otherwise we find ourselves 
involved with respect to the avadradis. 

Nitzsch (Sys. Doc. 387), says, on personal iden- 
tity : " The principle of individuality is the soul, 
not the body. * * * * The individual body cor- 
responds to the fundamental dispositions of the 
soul's individuality, and the moral formation of 



70 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

character imparts more and more to the body its 
other free or definite form. Whatever exceeds 
these two elements is peculiarity, and must be 
something absolutely perishable. Thus the prin 
ciple of the body's identity exists in the identity 
of the soul. "Whoever imagines the departed to be 
bodiless before the resurrection, will hardly find, 
in the mere ashes of the mouldered body, a con- 
necting link for the identity of the past and future 
corporeality. The medium of identity ought 
rather to be sought for in that corporeality in 
which the departed soul abides, and which, ac- 
cording to the nature of the cosmical sphere to 
which it primarily pertains, and according to the 
elements of its own internal form, is changed to 
the point where it reaches its final form. **■.;*-* 
In the mystical theology of the Jews, the identi- 
ty of the earthly and the heavenly bodies is al- 
together relinquished. The spirit, individualized 
in the soul, lays aside forever its earthly body, 
and attains, together with its capacity for renew- 
ing its corporeality, an entrance at last into the 
third heaven, where raiment lies ready for each 
of the elect." 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 71 

IX. 

THE ava6ra6i% BODY — WHAT ? WHENCE ? WHEN ? 

(a) 1 Cor. xv. 5 tells us the avadradit body 
shall be spiritual ; but what is " spiritual " when 
applied to body ? 

Spiritual, when applied to body, does not nega- 
tive the materiality of such body. It is not pos- 
sible to form any other conception of body than 
material. A spiritual body is such a body as 
shall be adapted to the nature, functions, and 
conditions of the soul in its existence beyond 
death ; just as the present physical body is adapt- 
ed to the nature, functions, and conditions of the 
soul in this present life. By our conceptions of 
the conditions of the future life, we are led to be- 
lieve that the spiritual body shall be constituted 
of matter refined, subtile, etheralized, in all ways 
adapted to quick and easy response to the voli- 
tions of the indwelling soul. The man is now 
perfect — God's ideal, — the perfect body is casket 
of the perfect soul. The perfect instrument 
the body, to the touch of the perfect musician, 



72 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

the soul, emits strains of harmony perfect, a 
song of joy, not one jarring note ; and this is the 
life in God of the future. 

(b) " God giveth to every seed his own peculiar 
body," may, doubtless, be carried over into the 
future and asserted of the body which shall 
clothe the seed-soul that passes into and is 
sown in the soil of the world unseen. But, query, 
by what process does God bestow the spiritual 
body upon the seed-soul — whence that body ? — 
This is a question which God has not answered, 
— and perhaps humility might lead man here to 
stop his search, and bow submissively before the 
Isis veil. But yet conjectures have been thrown 
out by thinking minds, which may not be with- 
out interest to look at, and it may be some sat- 
isfaction to see opened up even, if possible, ways 
of bestowal of the spiritual body wholly uncon- 
nected with the grave body, but yet (in harmony 
with the bent of scientific thought), an outgrowth 
from the dynamic essence now in the man — a 
mere development of the forces already by his 
nature in man. 

It is not easy to get at Origen's precise idea 
of the whence of the resurrection body. He in- 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 73 

dicates that the body of the present and the 
bodies of the future, are different in material. 
But yet he speaks of a "germ" in our now 
bodies " which contains the bodily substance," 
and which, in the future existence (by God's com- 
mand), produces " a spiritual body, capable of 
inhabiting heaven." But this so-called " germ " 
elsewhere he seems to regard rather as a force than 
anything material ; the spiritual body is thus 
rather a natural outgrowth from something now 
in, higher than, and not part of, the now flesh 
body, than a passing over of any of the flesh 
material into the future spiritual body as seed or 
nucleus of it. 

Says Alger (Future Life, 506): "The real 
man may never die. There are two reasonable 
ways of conceiving what the vehicle of this life 
is when he leaves his present frame. It may be 
that within his material system lurks an exquisite 
spiritual organization, invisibly pervading it and 
constituting its vital power. This etherial struc- 
ture is disengaged at last from its gross envelope, 
and, unfettered, soars to the divine realms of 
ether and light. Or it may be that there is in 
each one a primal germ, a deathless monad, 



74 THE RESURRECTIOK OF SEE B OD T. 

which continues the organic identity of man, 
root of his inmost stable being, triumphant 
unchanging ruler of his ever flowing, perishable 
organism. This spirit germ, bom into the 
present life, assimilates and holds the present 
body around it, out of the materials of this world; 
born into the future life, it will assimilate and 
hold around it a different body, out of the ma- 
terials of the future world. Each spirit shall be 
clothed from the material furnished by the world 
in which it resides. * * * The Hindus conceiv- 
ed the soul to be concealed within several suc- 
cessive sheaths, the innermost of which accom- 
panied it through all its transformations. The 
later Pythagoreans and Platonists seem to have 
believed that tne same numerical ethereal body 
with which the soul was at first created, adhered 
to it inseparably during all its descents into 
grosser bodies. — a lucid and wingy vehicle, which, 
purged by diet and catharms, ascends again, 
bearing the soul to its native seat. The doctrine 
of Swedenborg asserts man to be internally an 
organized form pervading the physical body, an 
eternal receptacle of life from God, — the ' con- 
stant influx of life from God ' (synonymous with 



BOSS THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 75 

6 spiritual existence, 5 ) dependant upon the re- 
ceiving organ ' the undecaying inner body ■ " 

Says Bush (Besurrection, 66, sq.) : " As the 
fact is incontestable, that a vital principle, per- 
vading the whole frame, co-exists with the intel- 
lectual principle in the body, is not the presump- 
tion perfectly legitimate that they exist also out 
of the body ? That we go into the other world 
thus embodied. * * * * It is ascertained, too, 
beyond question, that our vital functions are 
closely connected, if not identified, with the 
operation of certain invisible powers and elements 
which we denominate electric or galvanic. The 
nervous system is inseparably connected with 
this pervading agency, — the nervous system and 
mind are closely related. May not these subtile 
elements, now mixed up in the grosser materials of 
our bodies, with which our mental operations are 
so closely related — are dependant upon — be ex- 
tricated at death, and constitute a spiritual 
body ? " 

These hypotheses now presented indicate some 
possible ways in which, even in connection with 
our now body — yet distinct in substance from 
the corruptible flesh and blood — the soul may 



76 THE RESUBBECTION OF THE BODY. 

find material for the spiritual body in initio (in 
its beginings), to go on unto perfection (it may 
be), by slow process"of growth in the life beyond, 
— reaching its goal, its crowning, its final crisis, 
its completed ava6ra6i$ at some epoch of the 
future — "the last day." 

And, perhaps, just this was God's thought for 
Adam, had he abode in holiness ; not a continu- 
ous wearing of the flesh body as it now is, neither 
death with its now decay of faculties and pain, — 
but by a gentle unconscious loosening of the 
bands of the etherial body, the bands binding it 
to the gross flesh body, he should, out of that 
encasement (as the butterfly out of the cocoon) 
rise to a higher life-stage, in a body sublimated 
and fitted to new conditions. 

The bible representations are in harmony with 
some such hypothesis of the origin of the body 
with which we shall find ourselves clothed in the 
future life, as I have presented. The same Paul 
who upbraided those who might suppose that 
the body of the future was the grave body, writes 
to these same Corinthians (2 Ep. v. 1, sq.), to look 
for our future body elsewhere than to the grave 
(Bible Union version) : " For we know that, if 



D OES THE BIBLE TEA CR II ? 77 

our earthly house of the tabernacle [this body]? 
were dissolved, we have a building of God — a 
house [body] not made with hands, eternal in 
the hea,vens [not in the grave, in the heavens]. 
For in this [body] we groan, longing to be 
clothed with our house [body], which is from 
heaven ; seeing that, [immediately on separation 
from our now body] we shall be found clothed 
[with our heavenly body], [therefore] not naked. 
For we who are in the tabernacle [of this body] 
groan, being burdened ; in that we do not desire 
to be unclothed [naked], but to be clothed upon 
[by our body from heaven], that what is mortal 
might be swallowed up of life ; . . . know- 
ing that while at home in the [flesh] body, we 
are absent from the Lord, and are well pleased 
rather to be absent from the [flesh] body, and to 
be at home with the Lord [not naked, but clothed 
with our spiritual body]." Now, all this of the 
apostle is completely in harmony with some such 
derivation of the spiritual body, as suggested in 
the hypotheses already presented ; we are never 
to stand naked, but, at our first waking up over 
the line, we shall find ourselves clothed in a body 
— our " eternal" house, he says ; no changing, 



78 THE RESUBBECTIOK OF TEE BODY. 

then, of body at some other epoch in the future, 
e. g., at what some call " the resurrection." The 
epithet applied by the apostle to our future 
body, viz., " from heaven," is perfectly in har- 
mony with the derivation of the future body 
from the source indicated in the foregoing 
hypotheses. The person, on waking up to con- 
sciousness in the future state, finds himself in 
possession of a body of which he was not pre- 
viously conscious — a body, then, to all intents 
and purposes, to him, " From heaven," the gift 
of the new world in which he finds himself. 

And in favor of the derivation of the future 
body in some such way as suggested in the 
hypotheses presented, viz. : simply a natural 
development of the forces (dynamic essence, as 
Origen) in the now man, we are, in such concep- 
tion, in harmony with the most pervasive and 
powerful idea of present scientific thought, viz. : 
that the future higher is ever the development 
of the life-force in the lower. But adopt the 
conception of the resurrection-body, as now 
very widely maintained, viz. : a reinhabiting of 
the very atoms of the grave-body by the soul 
previously clothed in it — we are in direct con- 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 79 

flict with all God's known methods, both in na- 
ture and in grace — we are in direct conflict with 
the ground tenet of the foremost thinking of the 
day. 

(c) Our third question : When shall the soul 
enter into possession of the future body — has 
already virtually been answered, viz. : imme- 
diately at death. 

Accept any of the hypotheses above suggested^ 
and the person is never really bodiless ; he sim- 
ply rises out of one body (fitted for a lower kind 
of life), clothed with another body (fitted for a 
higher kind of life), extricated by process of 
nature from the lower gross body. To this we 
find a genuine analogy in nature, in the butterfly 
life, passing on in its development from one 
stage to another — never naked, always clothed 
in a body, one body in continuity rising out of 
the one just previously worn, the one previously 
worn left forever — no reinhabiting, no back move- 
ment. 

This same mode of conceiving of our entering 
into possession of the aradradi$ body, is indi- 
cated by the apostle in 1 Cor. xv, where he spe- 
cially deals with the relation of the now body to 



80 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

the future body. He takes a kernel of grain — 
mere grain — then he declares that this kernel of 
grain, sown, before development into another 
life-stage, must die — that body now in form of 
wheat kernel must dissolve in decay — from the 
midst of decay and scattering to dust, devoid of 
life (of the body of the wheat-kernel stage of 
life), the potency (dynamic essence) of the wheat- 
life passes out, not unclothed, naked potency, 
but in continuity of bodily clothing, as it passes 
out of the bodily form of the lower stage of 
the wheat-life — the bare grain kernel — it rises 
already clothed with a new and higher body (the 
stalk) suited to its new and higher life. The 
wheat-life never, in any of its future develop- 
ments, returns, hunts up, gathers together and 
reinhabits the once cast-off and dust-become 
azoic atoms of the bare grain-kernel body ; nei- 
ther shall the human spirit take any such retro- 
grade step — otherwise Paul's analogical reason- 
ing fails. 

This immediate possession of a body after 
death, and before the end of the world, is accord- 
ant with the Bible representation of those who 
have passed over into that other life, e, g., 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? Q\ 

Samuel, tlie rich man, Lazarus, Abraham, Moses 
on the Mount of Transfiguration, the heavenly 
inhabitants in the scenes depicted by John the 
Revelator. 

It is difficult (is it not impossible ?) to form any 
conception of creature-life without some organ- 
ism, shape, material essence, in which the specific 
life inheres. 

This difficulty was early felt by those who 
maintained that the resurrection-body should be 
constituted out of the materials of the grave-body ; 
they thus left the soul, from the grave to the 
end of the world, "naked," which Paul declares 
against. The Bible representation of the persons 
existing to-day in the life beyond declares them 
recognizable by each other, and to have mem- 
bers (Lazarus and rich man, Abraham). To 
escape from giving the persons finally two bodies 
— the one he now exists in, in the life beyond, 
and another of the grave material at the resur- 
rection — it was asserted that the soul itself " is 
corporeal, possessing a peculiar kind of solidity 
in its nature, such as enables it both to perceive 
and suffer," — so Tertullian. He says further: 
" The materiality of the soul is evident from the 



82 THE BESTJBBECTION 01 THE BODY. 

evangelists. A human soul is there expressly 
pictured as suffering in hell ; it is placed in the 
middle of a flame ; its tongue feels a cruel 
agony, and it implores a drop of water at the 
hands of a happier soul. Wanting materiality, 
all this would be without meaning." So Method- 
ius, in opposing Origen, says : " The soul is cor- 
poreal ; God alone is incorporeal." He ascribes 
to the soul " fingers, a tongue and other mem- 
bers." "It may be," he says, "the soul at 
change in death receives a form similar in ap- 
pearance to its gross and earthly body," — a 
hypothesis with respect to the resurrection-body 
which, to reconcile itself to the expressions of 
Scripture, is reduced to making the spirit " cor- 
poreal," possessing "solidity," "fingers," etc., and 
is so utterly repugnant to our entire now method 
of conceiving of spirit, it declares itself, prima 
facie, erroneous. Why is the representation of 
the Bible, with respect to the forms of persons? 
between death and the end of the world, " with- 
out meaning" to Tertullian, unless he make 
spirit material, with solidity, with fingers, etc. ? 
Simply because of his erroneous conception of 
the final destiny of the grave-body, and the 



DOES TEE BIBLE TEACH IT? 83 

resultant conception of now " naked" souls. Ac- 
cept, on the other hand, the positions here pre- 
sented, viz., the soul at death leaves the grave- 
body behind forever; the soul is not one in- 
stant " naked," but rises out of the flesh body- 
clothed in a spiritual body (in initio at least), 
as, according to Paul's analogy, the wheat-life 
rises out of the " bare grain" body, clothed in 
the stalk body ; Tertullian's whole difficulty flees, 
as mist before the rising sun. 

While our reason at once revolts from the 
thought that the spirit itvevma is a solid, with 
fingers, yet, at the same time, " Our reason 
assures us that the power of thought does not 
pertain to the gross physical fabric which re- 
mains when the inhabiting spirit takes its flight, 
and we are unable to resist the impression that 
it does inhere in sometliing^nx something which 
goes forth at the time with the vital principle." 
And why not that " something" in which the 
dynamic essence of thought now inheres, be, as a 
tertium quid, in the man now, some subtle, ethereal 
material substance, e. g., electricity, magnetism, 
known to be so intimately connected with the 
nervous material and mind, or, perhaps, some 



84 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

other sublimated spiritual substance, unknown 
and unknowable by our now methods of science? 
This refined body, within the grosser body of 
flesh, may now be the substratum in continuity 
of consciousness and personal identity, may 
now be the ultimate seat — clothing — of the think- 
ing potency, and shall pass out with it — still its 
clothing — from the flesh encasement, to be its 
clothing "eternal," its body " spiritual," its 
" house from heaven," 



X. 



CHRIST S RESURRECTION BODY. 

Was not the body Christ possessed after his 
resurrection identical, in its atoms, with the one 
he laid off at death ? Was not he the first fruits 
of the resurrection ? Do not the first fruits tell 
more plainly than words of what the rest of the 
harvest shall be ? 

The resurrection of Christ's body cannot be 
an exact type of the resurrection of his people's 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 85 

bodies at the end of the world. First, Christ's 
body saw no corruption ; its dust was not dis- 
solved into its ultimate elements and scattered \ 
second, the resurrection body of Christ was 
simply " flesh and bones ; " there had no change 
taken place in the nature of Christ's body ; it 
was not " spiritual," as the apostle declares the 
body in the avatiradis shall be ; it was simply the 
real and natural, physical, "flesh and bones" 
which were put in the tomb reinhabited by the 
spirit (Luke xxiv, 36-43) : " And while they were 
speaking these things, he himself stood in the 
midst of them, and says to them : ' Peace be 
to you.' But they were terrified and affrighted 
and supposed that they beheld a spirit. And 
he said to them : ' "Why are ye troubled ? 
And wherefore do thoughts arise in your hearts ? 
See my hands and my feet, that it s myself. 
Handle me and see ; for a spirit has not flesh 
and bones, as ye see me have.' And haying 
said this, he showed them his hands and his 
feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, 
and wondered, he said to them : 'Have ye here 
anything to eat ? ' And they gave him a piece 
of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb. And he 
took, and ate it before them." And also that of 



86 THE BESUBBECTION OF TEE BODY. 

John tends in the same direction (xx, 27.) He 
says to Thomas : "Reach hither thy finger, and 
see my hands ; and reach thy hand, and thrust 
it into my side ; and be not faithless, but believ- 
ing. " He wanted Thomas to believe that the 
very "flesh and bones " that he used to see were 
now before him. It was not because he was so 
changed in appearance after his resurrection 
that the two brethren walking with him to Em- 
maus did not recognize him, but it was because 
"their eyes were Tiolden that they should not 
know him;" and in a little the divine power, 
which miraculously put on the veil, miraculously 
removed it from their eyes (John xxiv. 16, 31), 
" and their eyes were opened, and they knew him ; 
and he vanished out of their sight." The same 
divine power which miraculously by a veil hid 
Christ in part from them so that they could not 
recognize him, was able to put a veil over their 
eyes so that they should not see him at all- 
should lose sight of him — or the divine power, 
which by miracle had operated on the eyes of 
the disciples, would now operate on the body of 
Christ and at once remove it from the room. 
But there is no need of conceiving of any mira- 
cle in the case; the language simply implies 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 87 

that he was not seen any longer by them. How 
that came about we are not told. The time at 
which a change passed upon our Saviour's body 
was at the time of ascending into heaven, as in 
the body of Enoch, Elija, and of those who 
shall be living on the earth when Christ comes 
in glory, whose bodies, at the moment of ascent, 
" shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, at 
the last trump." 

If the resurrection of Christ was not an exact 
pattern of the aradradit body of his people in 
those two particulars just named, it may also 
fail of being an exact pattern in the matter of 
identity of the atoms of the body laid away in the 
tomb with the atoms of the future body. The 
fifteenth chapter of I. Corinthians nowhere hints 
that the resurrection of Christ is an exact pattern 
of our aradradis. It does not indicate to us in any 
way, that as Christ's body which was laid in the 
grave was reinhabited by the soul, so shall our 
grave bodies be. Paul simply affirms that Christ 
after death rose, lived, and that this fact should 
forever set aside denial of life after death — an 
avadradi}, a future life. But this is a very differ- 
ent thing from saying: Christ's resurrection in 



88 THE RESURRECTION OF TEE BODY. 

all its particulars is an exact pattern of what 
shall occur to his people. 

The resurrection of Christ was for a far grand- 
er purpose than simply to indicate that God 
can raise the dead. The dead had been raised 
again and again before this. Neither was its 
purpose a mere declaration of the sort of atoms 
which should constitute the avadratiis body 
of the redeemed. The divine idea of Christ's 
resurrection was, to give proof to man that his 
work for human redemption was accepted by 
God. 

Included in this, is proof of his divine mission, 
of the truth of his teachings, of his victory over 
death, of his power to raise the dead, of his 
future coming to judge the world — of this latter, 
says Scripture (Acts xvn, 31.), " God has afford- 
ed proof to all, havingraised him from the dead." 
This wide, grand conception of the significance 
of the resurrection of Christ, is that maintained 
by Paul in I. Cor. xv., — in the apostle's thought 
it underlies the entire gospel message — "If Christ 
be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in 
your sins." 

Strauss calls the resurrection of Christ : 



DOES- THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 89 

"The center of the center, the real heart of 
Christianity," So Christlieb says : " This dog- 
ma is the proof of all other dogmas, the corner 
stone on which the Christian church is built." 
But for proof of Christ's victory over death 
and of his rising to life, it was indispensable that 
the very identical atoms laid away in the grave 
rise. Let the atoms of that body laid away in 
Joseph's new tomb lie there, men would claim : 
" He is held of death, he is an impostor,he is 
not a messenger from God, his teachings are 
not truth." Nothing less than the rising of the 
very body which Thomas and the other disciples 
saw before death, could have so convinced skep- 
tical Thomas and the others, that Christ had con- 
quered death, was truly Messiah, was accepted 
with God as man's Redeemer, As long as the 
marred body lay in the rock behind the govern- 
ment seal, the Roman guard, the Pharisees, all 
his enemies, could have pointed to the seal un- 
broken as proof of his being a deceiver, That 
seal must be broken, that tomb must be emptied, 
that very identical torn body must rise, — this 
not at all as a precise type of what atoms shall 
constitute the future bodies of the redeemed, — 
but for the other and far grander purpose, viz. : 



90 THE BESUBBECTION OF THE BODY. 

proof that lie came from God, that he was Mes- 
siah, that the work he offered God for man's 
redemption God accepted. 



XI. 



NEW PEOPEETTES OF ATOMS EVIDENCE OF NEW 

ESSENCE. 

Only so long does any given essence retain its 
identity, so far as cognizable by our faculties, 
when it retains identity in its properties. Essence 
is known to us only through its properties. 
Spiritual essence, e. g., the bodies of angels, ex- 
hibits wholly different properties from the mat- 
ter of our flesh bodies, e. g., not perceptible to 
otir now powers of vision, able at pleasure to 
pass through the air, not subject to decay, not 
nourished as our now bodies, " not flesh and 
bones." But it is claimed by those who main- 
tain that the grave body is to constitute the 
future body, that when that grave body material 
enters into the constitution of the future body, 
it shall be spiritual essence, i. e. 9 cognizable by us 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? Ql 

only through an entirely new set of properties. 
Pushing, then, as far as our present faculties for 
the identification of essences will carry us, must 
we not judge that that matter lifted from the 
grave and now constituting the spiritual body, 
revealing new properties, must be in its essence 
new, — as genuinely a new creation exhibiting 
new properties, as if it never had had any con- 
nection whatever with that matter, so totally 
different in all that by which identity of matter 
is cognizable by us, which in death we saw, and 
loved, and wept over, and handled, and laid away 
in the grave ? 

And thus, the person who says, " I believe the 
dust atoms laid away in the grave shall be got- 
ten up, and shall constitute the essence of the 
future body, but that grave matter shall be en- 
dowed with new properties and be subject to 
new laws," as truly constitutes the future body 
of a new essence as does he who says, " I have 
no evidence in the Bible that the dust atoms laid 
away in the grave shall be raised, — the spiritual 
essence of the future body and the dust matter 
of the grave body are not identical matter." 
The atoms of the two bodies are different in their 



92 TEE RESUBRECTION OF TEE BODY. 

properties, so far as human faculties are com- 
petent to determine ; they must, therefore, be 
different in essence. 



XII. 



WHAT COMES, THEN, OE, " I WELL BAISE HIM UP AT 
THE LAST DAY " ? 

That of John (yi, 39, 40, 44) : " I will raise 
him up at the last day," may seem at the first 
glance, to militate against the theory of the 
future body here presented. "When it is called 
to mind that the Jews at the time of Christ very 
generally believed in the rising of the grave 
body and its reinhabiting by the soul at some 
future day, called " the last day," a different 
coloring will be given to this utterance of Christ, 
from that which would legitimately be given it, 
had no such belief prevailed among them to 
whom Christ was speaking. When God of old 
communicated spiritual knowledge to men, he 
accommodated himself in his communications to 
their scientific knowledge, he taught them 



DOES TEE BIBLE 1EACH IT? 93 

spiritual truths accepting as true their scientific 
beliefs, e, g. } the rising and setting of the sun 
the extent of the flood, the stability of the earth. 
He did not interfere with their scientific know- 
ledge, he did not attempt to enlighten them in 
this respect — a mere subsidiary matter. So in 
the communication of the grand spiritual truth 
that all who should believe in him should attain 
future life, Christ used language that could be 
understood by the Jew ; and to do this Christ 
merely meets the Jew on his own level in his 
crude method of conceiving of these things, so 
wholly subsidiary to the grand central truth — 
a future life, viz. : of what material the body of 
the glorified should be constituted, at what time 
they should enter into possession of that body. 
Christ meeting the Jew thus in these subsidiary 
immaterial things in order that the Jew might 
fully grasp the grand truth he seeks to commu- 
nicate to him : " Future life by me," no more in- 
dorses as truth these subsidiary beliefs of the 
Jew, than did God indorse as true all errors in 
physics held by the Jew when of old for the 
nonce he dealt with the Jew in communicating 
spiritual knowledge, as if they were true. 



94 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

I prefer this explanation of the term, "the 
last day," to another which may be afforded, 
viz. : as the human life begins on earth as a germ 
merely, and slowly appropriates the needed ma- 
terials and characteristics of a mature completed 
human body, reaching that crowning only through 
a prolonged process as the final crisis of that 
process, so may the person enter that other 
world as a mere life-germ and only by an idefi- 
nitely prolonged process build up to perfection 
a spiritual body. This final crisis in the process 
in which a perfected spiritual body is attained, 
at some indefinite point in the future, may sig- 
nificantly be named " the last day." It is then 
and only then he attains a completed avadradi?,. 
It may be called significently " that day," as the 
one in which is attained a perfected nature as 
a "crown." 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 95 



XIIL 

WHAT COMES, THEN, OF " THE EEDEMPTION OP OUR 
BODY?" 

Paul's expression (Eom. vni, 23.,) : "We groan 
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, 
the redemption of our body," may seem to mili- 
tate against the body's being left in the grave. 

If we go back and pick up and keep hold of 
the thread of the apostle's thought, we find 
that the "body" is not, in Paul's conception of 
it, a thing to be clung to as desirable, but is 
something burdensome, a real clog from which 
he longs for deliverance. In the sixth chapter 
he warns the Romans against the body. In the 
seventh chapter he still speaks of the body dis- 
paragingly, speaks of it as a tempter and hin- 
derer, and declares : " In my flesh dwelleth no 
good thing," and says : " I delight in the law of 
the Lord after the inward man. But I see 
another law in my members, warring against the 
law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity 
to the law of sin which is in my members. 



96 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

Wretched man, that I am ! who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death." He feels himself 
fettered to the burden and clog of a dead " body." 
He groans here for freedom from it. In the 
eighth chapter he still continues his philippic 
against the "flesh." He now extends the groan- 
ing he finds in himself oyer the " whole creation" 
— all is subject to vanity. But he declares (v. 21), 
that the " creation" shall be freed, separated 
from " the bondage of corruption " now pressing 
upon it. And he chimes in (v. 23) : " "We, too, as 
the creation, now groan, being burdened with 
the bondage of corruption through this body of 
flesh, — but we wait with the glad expectation of 
hope, that as the creation shall be separated 
from its bondage to vanity, so shall we be sep- 
arated from the body, — shall finally attain in its 
full significance our " adoption," an absence 
from the body and a presence with the Lord." 
So Dr. Robinson in his lexicon translates in this 
passage the word here (v. 23), written " Redemp- 
tion," " Deliverance," and translates : " Deliver- 
ance from the body ; " — and this is answer to 
Paul's cry (ch. vii, 24.) : "Who shall deliver me 
from the body ?" (Compare in Greek, Luke XIH, 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 97 

12 : "Woman, thou art loosed [separated] from 
thine infirmity.") 

So the writer of Heb. ix, 14., says that Christ 
died, " For the redemption of the transgressions," 
not that the transgressions through this "re- 
demption" should be taken to heaven, but 
should be separated froni the man, and left ut- 
terly behind. And this is precisely what I claim 
is Paul's thought, when longing to escape from 
the clog of the body, and crying, " Who will de- 
liver me from the body? " He in the next chapter 
says : " We groan, waiting for the redemption — 
putting away, separation from— our body," that 
so having attained the adoption in its completed 
idea — a spiritual nature — absent from the body, 
we shall be present with the Lord, 

It may, in opposition to the interpretation now 
given, be urged, that although in its verb root, 
"redemption" means in the Greek, "To loose 
from, to deliver from," yet it does not always 
imply a casting away of the thing redeemed,; — 
but the redeemed thing separated from some 
evil rises to a higher state, e. g., (Eph. 1. 14.) : 
"Redemption of the purchased possession." 
Accepting this as true in some cases, accepting 



98 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

it as true even of the passage in hand (Eom. 
Yrn. 23), yet is that "body" whose "redemption" 
is here spoken of necessarily the grave " body ?" 

The final crisis of the world's history in the 
coming of Christ, was a thought deeply written 
in the apostle's heart — it was to him the time of 
the consummation of all his hopes (2 Tim. 1. 12): 
"I know whom I have believed, and I am per- 
suaded he is able to keep that which I have 
committed to him, unto that day;" again (rv. 8): 
" I have fought the good fight, henceforth there 
is laid up for me the crown of righteousness^ 
which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me 
in that day ; and not to me only, but also to all 
those who have loved his appearing." And this 
is precisely the crisis referred to in Romans vni- 
where he declares shall take place the " deliver- 
ance" of the groaning " creation," "the revela- 
tion of the sons of God," and the full fruition 
of the "adoption" in "the redemption of our 
body." 

But we find Paul, in his ferved poetic tempera- 
ment, when speaking of this glorious crowning 
time to all God's people, throwing himself for- 
ward into it, and speaking as if he should be liv- 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 99 

ing when Christ should come (1 Thess. iv. 15, 17) : 
" We the living who remain unto the coming of 
the Lord, shall not precede those who fell asleep. 
The Lord himself shall descend with a shout 
then we the living who remain, will be caught up 
to meet the Lord in the air." And why may we 
not accept this as the apostle's mode of concep- 
tion in Rom. vm ? He groans to be delivered from 
the bondage of corruption he finds in the " body ;" 
"creation itself" also groans under " bondage of 
corruption." Ah ! but wait a little, Christ is com- 
ing ; the creation shall be delivered, rising into 
"glorions liberty ;" we, too, the living "sons of 
God" shall then be glad in attained freedom — 
the redemption of our " body " from the bond- 
age of corruption, its being "changed in the 
twinkling of an eye," and rising in the air, a 
spiritual thing, to meet the Lord. But, this, 
you will observe, gives us no whit of light as to 
what material the bodies of those whom God, at 
that crisis, "shall bring with him," which is the 
matter we are now discussing. The passage, 
thus interpreted, has no reference whatever to 
the grave body. (Compare Phils, m. 20, 21.). 



100 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

XIV. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE avatiradiS BODY. ~ 

The future bodies of the righteous shall be 
beautiful ; the future bodies of the lost shall be 
ugly. "We are taught this by what we see in 
men's now bodies of dust material, and by 
thought of the finer, more impressible essence 
of the spiritual body of the future. 

We form, from the expression of a person's 
physiognomy, an opinion of his character. We 
judge him to be a man, good, bad, refined, coarse, 
intellectual, non-intellectual, etc., etc. In passing 
such judgment we tacitly affirm that the charac- 
teristics of the spirit impress themselves on the 
body — fashion the body after their own likeness. 
The body is, thus, a reflection — counterpart in 
expression — of the spirit. A good, beautiful 
spirit reflects itself in a good beautiful face ; a 
bad, ugly spirit reflects itself in a bad, ugly face. 
If this now body, crass and hard, not easily im- 
pressible by the spirit, is thus molded into the 
likeness of the spirit whose abode it is, how 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 1Q1 

much more perfectly must the body of the 
future — whose essence is spiritual, easy of im- 
press — reflect the likeness, be a counterpart? 
of the spirit dwelling within ! As on the surface 
of the glassy lake each breath of air reveals it- 
self, so on the subtile, ethereal substance which 
shall in the future as body clothe the spirit, will 
the life-throbbings, impulses, emotions, desires, 
volitions — features of that spirit — daguerreotype 
themselves. 

Says one writer (" Credo," 321) : " God giveth 
to every seed his own, L e. his appropriate body. 
The body is to be perfectly adapted to character. 
The formative energy within us which is an at- 
tribute of the soul, taking the food we eat, by 
laws of digestion, circulation and secretion, 
forms to-day a body which resembles the inner 
man. These tendencies of expression must be 
very active and powerful, for the soul appears 
in and stamps itself upon every feature of the 
face. The shape of the nose decided Napoleon 
in the selection of his generals. This is the law 
of our physical organization. And when the 
sOul takes to itself its spiritualized and ethere- 
alized matter in eternity, and builds up out of its 



102 THE BESUBBECTION OF THE BODY. 

own seed the new and eternal tabernacle, the 
whole man will appear. We shall know and we 
shall be known. The good and the bad stamps 
we shall then bear visibly upon us. If we are 
the children of God, that fact will be stamped 
upon our future body in characters of living 
light and beauty. All who have the image of 
Christ in their heart, will have their new bodies 
fashioned after Christ's most glorious body. 
Every child of heaven must, from the neceesity 
of things, in the metropolis of God, have Christ's 
name written on the forehead. He will have his 
stamp, his insignia of office, this ancient coat of 
arms of God's family : ' Christ's name on his 
forehead,' stamped there, legible to all, He is 
in the line of kings and priests ; his outward 
form will bear the impress of royal dignity and 
priestly purity. 

" But there is a fearful thought here for another 
class. The character of the wicked shall be 
written upon his features with startling distinct- 
ness. There will then be no cloak to cover him. 
He will then be destitute of the power of a de- 
ceptive smile, and of that false pretence which 
in this life serves his selfish purposes. All the 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 103 

hate, all the remorse, all the disgrace, and all the 
crafty cunning of the soul will find, must find, 
perfect expression. The wretch will look like a 
wretch. The vicious will look vicious. The sen- 
sual and devilish man in this world will look 
like a sensual and devilish man in the next 
world. He could not help it if he would. The 
judgment books are fully open, and in a legible 
hand each man bears their record of him in his 
face. They are open to the most public inspec- 
tion. "What was done in secret is now declared 
on the housetops. Between the sheep and the 
goats a child may distinguish. The man with 
out the wedding garment will be speechless, 
Conceit and bluster will have no place there. 
judgment will begin in the bodily tabernacle. 
Over all the lost host will brood the sorrow which 
at last 'biteth like a serpent and stingeth like 
an adder.' ' Whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
he also reap,' reap in the very formation of the 
body he shall eternally wear ; a body of ugliness 
or beauty, shame or glory ; a monstrosity in God's 
universe, fit only for a fellow of devils ; or a body- 
ing forth of God's ideal of spiritual beauty of hu- 
man form, fit for introduction into the inner fel- 



104 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

lowship of his own household, fit for companion- 
sliip of angels and of God. As is the spiritual 
stamp on our soul when we die, with such im- 
press shall our spiritual body rise in the beyond* 
with such stamp exist eternally ; a stamp ugly, 
devilish, repulsive ; or a stamp beautiful, Christ- 
like, attractive— a delight to look upon." 

Our now inside dressing is thus, by and by, 
to become our outside dressing. When men get 
their spiritual bodies, and are turned inside out, 
the well dressed and the poorly dressed people 
then will not in every case be those who rank in 
these classes among us to-day. The being well 
dressed or poorly dressed in eternity and for 
eternity, will be dependent not upon the outside 
(perhaps accidental) goodness of the person's 
purse, but upon the inside goodness of the per- 
son's heart. 

The avadradis body shall be radiant with 
beauty and glistening as the light. 

The angel seen by Daniel (x. 5 sq.) : " Was 
girded with fine gold, his body also was like the 
beryl, and his face as the appearance of light- 
ning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms 
and his feet like in color to polished brass." 



DOES TEE BIBLE TEACH IT? 1Q5 

The apocalyptic angel was (Eev. X. 1,) "mighty, 
clothed with a cloud, a rainbow was upon his 
head, and his face was as it were the sun, and 
his feet as pillars of fire." Nobility, beauty, 
radiancy, clothe these angels. The resplendent 
beauty and majesty of these beings seem some- 
times to be even more than human strength can 
endure vision of. Says Daniel, after a vision of 
the angel Gabriel, (vin. 17, 27) ; "I was afraid, and 
fell on my face, and fainted, and was sick cer- 
tain days ;" so John (Eev. xix. 10 and xxn. 8) 
"Fell to worship before the feet of the angel," 
that spoke to him. 

The revelator says of the body now possessed 
by Jesus (i. 12 sq.) : " He was clothed with a 
garment falling down to the feet, was girded with 
a golden girdle — his eyes were as a flame of fire, 
and his feet were as burnished brass, as if burn- 
ing in a furnace, his countenance was as the sun 
shining in his strength." But our future body 
is to be " fashioned like unto his glorious body 
(Phil. in. 21). So Christ says (Matt, xiil 43) : 
" The righteous shall shine forth as the sun in 
the kingdom of their Father," and Daniel (xii. 23), 
" Many of them that sleep in the dust of the 



1 06 THE BESUEBECTION OF TEE BODY 

earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and 
some to shame and everlasting contempt, and 
they that be wise shall shine as the brightness 
of the firmament, and they that turn many to 
righteousness as the stars forever and ever." 
And, perhaps, as type of that divinely beautiful, 
radiant, glistening throng of the future clothed in 
the resplendent body of the avadradt^, we have 
the radiant ones of the mount of the transfigura- 
tion. Moses and Elijah (Luke ix. 31), " appeared 
in glory." Christ (Matt. xvn. 2) " Was transfig- 
ured before them, and his face shone as the sun, 
and his garments became white as the light, 
(Matt. ix. 3) shining, exceeding white as snow, 
such as no fuller on earth can whiten." "He 
that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in 
white raiment, and he shall sit with me on my 
throne." "And after these things I saw, and 
behold a great multitude, which no one could 
number, out of every nation and all tribes and 
peoples and tongues, standing before the Lamb, 
clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands, 
and they cry with a loud voice, saying, ' Sal- 
vation to our God, who sits upon the throne, and 
to the Lamb.' And one of the elders said to me ; 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 1Q7 

* These who are clothed in the white robes, who 
are they, and whence came they ? ' And I said 
to him, 'Sir, thou knoweth.' And he said to me, 
' These are they who come out of the great trib- 
ulations, and they washed their robes, and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb. There- 
fore are they before the throne of God, and they 
serve him day and night in his temple ; and he 
who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle 
over them. They shall hunger no more, neither 
thirst any more ; neither shall the sun fall upon 
them, nor any heat ; because the Lamb which is 
in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, 
and will lead them to the fountains of the waters 
of life, and God will wipe away every tear from 
their eyes." 

The future body of the redeemed shall not only 
be beautiful, be glistening with radiance, it shall 
possess immortal youth — youth in all that makes 
youth joyous and covetable. The future body 
of the redeemed shall have in it perennial fulness 
of life, such fulness of life as shall make simple 
living a joy— an unintermitting singing. It is 
the gladness of mere living, coursing through it 
in the full, glowing, throbbing pulsations of young 



108 THE RESURREQTION OF THE BODY. 

life, that causes the gleesome frisking of the lamb 
on the green sward, the wood warbler to sing and 
sport, the child to dance and run and shout. Life 
in its youthful fulness is a gladness and a sing- 
ing — every fibre of the body quivers and tingles 
and shouts in the joyous on-rushing of bounding 
life. In old age all is changed ; the powers of 
the " earthly tabernacle " become enfeebled, 
" the keepers of the house tremble, the strong 
bow themselves, the grinders cease because they 
are few, those that look out of the windows are 
darkened, the sounding of the grinding is low, 
the grasshopper is a burden, desire fails," the 
forces of life drag heavily their "slow length 
along ;" work feebly, wearily ; to live is " travail." 
But, anon, in the development of the life-force 
in him, the worn out, jaded chrysalis casing is es- 
caped from — thrown off — forever. He stands 
forth (butterfly like), clothed in a new body, a 
body endowed with perennial youth ; henceforth 
that body ever full of, ever thrilling and singing 
in, joyousness of bounding, glad, ebullient life. 
Life is now a perennial, forceful, thrilling stream, 
pouring in upon him from the Fountain Head of 
all life and gladness, and singing, flooding him, 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 1Q9 

tingling along every fibre of his being, causing 
eyery atom to dance in very joyousness. Age is 
clean escaped from him. Young once more, life is 
a forceful, ebullient, gladsome, singing thing once 
more. Young again, young again forever! Weari- 
ness, sluggishness, dulness, feebleness, travail of 
old age in its every form, forever left behind, 
Youth, youth immortal now ! 

An aged saint, who had passed her four-score 
years (my mother), said to me amid the oppress- 
ing weight of old age's frailties, " I wish I was 
young again." Thou hast escaped the jaded 
chrysalis encasement, thou hast put on the new 
body, thou art young again now (mother), young 
forever! Blessed youth that never gets old! 
youth pure ! youth in and with God ! 

The future body shall be free from all taint of 
sin. Paul shall no longer cry from the depth of 
his great heart, " "Wretched man that I am ! who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death?" 
Paul shall then have attained the " adoption " he 
waited for — "the redemption — separation from 
this body," with all its corruption, and an en- 
trance into possession of a pure body. Oh, what 
a deliverance ! What a treasure gotten ! A body 



HO THE BESTJBRECTION OF THE BODY. 

now whose every impulse is toward God, wholly 
possessed and moved by the Christ life ! A har- 
monized, a unit being at last ! Victory at last — 
victory for holiness ! Peace at last ! Life is in its 
highest, holiest, divine st strains and fruitings 
now, the mere joyous, spontaneous outgushings 
of our harmonized, sanctified, complete being- 
soul and body. 

Very shortly shall God's child rise out of the 
body fleshly, corruptible, mortal, into the body 
spiritual, incorruptible, immortal ; out of the 
body subject to weakness, sickness, frailties of 
age, the body at variance with the spirit, into 
the body of youth perennial, pure, at one with the 
soul. In the river of Death's shadow, the Son 
of the Great King doffs the habiliment of corrup- 
tion and bondage — the flesh — and dons the attire 
of royalty, rises from death's waters "clothed 
in his house which is from heaven "—a body glo- 
rious, like unto Christ. How differently does 
the once earth-beggar, the despised, the outcast, 
the hunted, the burned at the stake, now appear, 
as he — to go no more out forever — sits down at 
the marriage supper of the Lamb, clad in the 
robes of royalty ! clad in youth immortal ! glis- 



DOES TEE BIBLE TEACH IT? m 

ening in heaven's light! God's ideal when He 
said: "Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness." Well may the son of the King Eter- 
nal be patient the short day of his humiliation — 
as was Jesus, our brother — knowing that shortly 
he shall lay aside forever his clothing of poverty, 
sickness, toil, conflict, tears, flesh itself and its 
bondage, and shall rise — the river crossed — in 
the body spiritual, immortal, resplendent, fellow 
of angels and of Jesus in the gloriousness of the 
beauty of the body of the avadradis ! the perfect 
man ! 



XV. 

"he that believeth on me hath eternal liee." 

The view now given of the nature of the 
avadradi;, body and of the time of our entering into 
possession of it, gives great fulness to our Lord's 
declaration, that from the moment of the person's 
reception of Christ, there is now henceforth for 
him simply life ; he is " passed from death unto 
life;" he has eaten of that "manna" through the 



112 THE RESUBBECTION OF TEE BODY. 

power of which he shall "not die." "Verily, 
verily, I say unto yon : He that believeth on me 
hath eternal life." " Eternal life " is not something 
he is going to enter into possession of at some 
indefinite point in the future, it is now. There 
is now henceforth forever no death for such per- 
son ; it is now for him simply life, ceaseless life; 
and all the seeming deaths he may henceforth pass 
through — affliction, furnace fires consuming life- 
hopes, or the "valley" itself — are simply phases 
in the progressive development of the eternal life 
in him, ever advancing forms of that life as it 
goes on unfolding its enveloped and hidden riches 
until the final crisis and full crowning. No more 
is separation from the gross flesh encasement, 
dying, in the deepest significance to man of that 
word, than is the rising of the butterfly life from 
the hiding and clogging and repulsive form of the 
grub, into the beautifully tinted winged being of 
the air, dying. No, the believer passing out of 
the envelope of the corrupt flesh encasement 
does not die, he simply makes a grand step for- 
ward in life development, breaks bonds which 
have long fettered him, in whose grip he has 
groaned, and rises into freedom. 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? H3 

In this light, how different a thing does the 
close of the believer's earthly pilgrimage become, 
from what it is generally regarded! It is a 
"death" bed no longer; it is a birth-place to a 
higher life ; he possesses now as never before, 
life in God. 

In respect to the child of the Great King thus 
escaping from bondage, from the straggle with 
corrupt flesh, from all pain of discipline, rising 
thence into liberty, holiness, crowning, there is 
no occasion for tears, for draping the house in 
mourning, our person in black, our heart in sad- 
ness. In respect to the one passed the crisis of 
separation from the dust tabernacle, our emotions 
should rather be those of rejoicing, our song not 
a dirge, but a pean — free at last ! victor at last ! 
like Christ at last ! safe at home, safe at home 
forever at last ! Wiser than we, are that people 
of Asia, who, when the man is born, weep ; when 
he dies, rejoice. So Paul says, "To be absent 
from the body and to be present with Christ, is 
far better than to abide in the flesh.'' 

Why should we weep the one passed the crisis 
of separation from the dust body ? All that dis- 
turbs or annoys, simply that which has been — 



1 14 BES UBBEGTION OF THE B OB Y. 

and thus now forever — a nature-dreaded inevit- 
able crisis of his being is gotten through with ! 
The fleshly clog to spiritual aspiration, the dim- 
ming veil to spiritual vision, the corrupting 
"dead body " in wearisome struggle for personal 
holiness and Christ-likeness, is now clean escaped 
from — unclothed of — " corruption." The person 
does not stand naked, he is in the same instant 
" clothed upon with his house which is from heav- 
en," the body spiritual, that spiritual body as truly 
an organism, as truly substance, and in form and 
features as well defined as were the angel bodies 
in olden times, which used to be mistaken for 
veritable men — men clothed in bodies of flesh 
(e. g., "The young man" at the sepulchre, the 
" Two men " in white apparel at the ascension). 
Thus had we eyes of faculty to see spiritual sub- 
stance — to see our friend just separated from his 
earthly tabernacle, the flesh — we should see him 
our friend still — his form human, with eyes to 
see, ears to hear, hands to clasp ours, arms to 
embrace us, a face bearing his old smile and fea- 
tures revealing the same man to us that his face of 
flesh revealed to us ; only the man in his entire 
spirit nature being more beautiful, perfect, Christ- 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? H5 

like now, so shall be the expression of his coun- 
tenance — elevated, refined, spiritualized — radiat- 
ing those features in their wondrous transfor- 
mation, human beauty in all the loveliness of the 
Divine ideal — man perfect again ! our own dear 
friend still, that now perfect man, whom we used 
to know and love on earth, but, oh, how intensi- 
fied his loveliness J What a large step in eternal 
life unfoldings did he make in that crisis of sepa- 
ration from the flesh body ! Let our eye of faith, 
thus rest upon him, let our heart take in the 
vision, let us gaze steadfastly on him as he is — 
transfigured and radiant as his Lord on the 
Mount — our tears are dried up, and a sweet, 
small, still voice, as music of a better sphere, 
whispers deep down in our comforted soul, 
" Happy, thrice happy are the from-the-body lib- 
erated ones, henceforth now forever with the 
Lord!" 

This method of conceiving of the change oc- 
curring at the separation from the flesh-encase- 
ment, may also lighten up for the believer the 
moment of his own final crisis. No death for 
me, — in Christ that is clean escaped — only life 
now ever developing. No naked, ghostly exist- 



116 THE BESUBBECTION OF TEE BODY. 

ence after leaving the dust tabernacle ; rising 
from out tlie corrupt flesh house, I find myself 
clothed in my house incorruptible from heaven. 
No existence as shade among shades beyond the 
river; an organism I find myself there; my 
friends I find there organisms, in form and fea- 
tures and voice as they used to be here, only 
fairer, purer, more like Jesus, — more to me than 
ever (these friends), now. Oh, friendship in 
heaven! Oh, blessed, blessed, thrice blessed 
change ! Happy, happy, thrice happy transforma- 
tion ! Precious, precious, thrice precious instant, 
that instant in which, resting on Jesus' bosom, 
I shall " sleep over into that other life ! " The 
goal is reached now ! Nothing to disturb nor an- 
noy now — nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing for- 
ever ! Besting at home, at last ! "Why dread that 
moment of unconsciousness which contains all 
this — escape from every evil, the gateway to bliss 
unalloyed, eternal gateway to the presence of my 
Beloved ! 

Weary with the day's burdens at eventide, 
I court the moment of sleep's unconscious- 
ness, I pray it to haste— the gateway of re- 
freshment, new life, a new day. Why not court 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? HJ 

that other moment of unconsciousness, pray 
it to haste, when after the burdens of life's busy- 
day, I shall pillow my head on Jesus' bosom and 
fall asleep— that moment of unconsciousness, the 
gateway to refreshment immortal — never to be 
weary again ; gateway to a new life, perfect in God 
to a Sabbath with no evening, a Sabbath at our 
Father's homestead, and all the family home 
again ! 

Why, rather than dreading the final crisis, 
should not the believer cry : Come thou bless- 
ed moment of release from the bonds of this 
body's corruption — thou moment of sweet liberty 
when on Jesus bosom I fall asleep! Instant 
in which my eyes closing on the fair sights of 
earth shall open on sights of beauty heavenly, clos- 
ing on loved faces earthly shall open on faces 
long since hidden from me — see my Lord in 
all his loveliness ! Haste thou blessed moment, 
when my ears, ceasing to catch sound of earthly 
melody, shall listen wrapt to angel music, — ceas- 
ing to hear voices of earth so dear, shall catch 
once more sound of old familiar voices now of a 
long time silent. Oh, how silent ! 

Blessed moment, when wearied with the strug- 



118 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

gle of the battle-field, all beat out with the heat 
and burdens of the day, lost in the unconscious- 
ness of but an instant of slumber, I wake up to 
hear the glad cry : " The war is ended, the victory- 
is won ! Peace, peace ! Lay aside thine armor ! 
Thou hast well done! Come home, enter in, 
rest, be crowned ! The Egyptians whom thou 
hast seen to-day, thou shalt see no more forever! " 

" ' Tis not death — the soul's releasing ; 

Bursting of its prison bars ; 
Bounding back to God who gave it, 

Mounting upward to the stars. 
' Tis not death, ' tis life eternal, 

Here to close the weary eyes, 
But to open them with transport 

On the beams of Paradise ! " 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? 119 

XVI. 

CONCLUSION. 

My theory and my argument are now present- 
ed. If I have succeeded in persuading the 
reader that the resurrection of the graye-flesh 
is nowhere divinely taught in scripture, I feel 
assured that subsequently he has gone with me 
gladly and with a sense of relief, onward in my 
argument to my conclusions, — has felt himself 
eased of a load he has been carrying of doubt 
and darkness and difficulty. The theory pre- 
sented answers every demand of scripture, and 
at the same time relieves the doctrine of future 
life in an organism of all its philosophical diffi- 
culties, of all the crudities of the Zoroastrian 
and (probably hence derived) Hebrew grave- 
flesh rising theory, of all its repulsiveness to 
modern scientific thought, lies in the line of 
that thought — a higher organism developed by 
force of circumstances from a lower. How much 
more consonant the theory of the avadradi$ now 
presented with the scripture teachings, with 



120 TEE RESURRECTION OF 1HE BODY. 

modern science, with our entire now method of 
thinking, than the ordinary theory : the rising of 
the grave-flesh and its reinhabiting by the soul. 
I have given some specimens of the picturing 
of the resurrection scene by those who maintain 
the rising of the grave-flesh , (Introduction). I 
may add here a similar repulsive picturing of the 
scene drawn by a later hand (Talmage, Sermons, 
1872, Resurrection). Dr. Talmage makes the 
spirits of the redeemed " come rushing out the 
gates of eternity"" to hunt up their dismembered 
andfar-scattered bodies. They scramble helter 
skelter about the burying places. How they 
know where te find their bodies he does not say. 
In the meantime, when any body comes up 
with a piece bitten out of it by some cannibal, 
God is busy in stuffing up these holes with new 
made adhesive filling, as house-painters stick 
putty into worm holes in wood to fill up gaps. 
He says : " The objectors say that the body is 
scattered to such a great distance it can never 
be gathered. A man went into the Mexican 
"War and lost a foot. He comes to New York, 
and by accident loses a finger. He afterwards 
goes as a missionary to China, and there dies. 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? X2I 

Will the foot come from Mexico, and the finger 
fiom New York, and join the body in China ? I 
answer, it is no harder for God to do that than 
to do things he has already done. There will 
be heard the voice of the uncounted millions of 
the dead, who come rushing out of the gates of 
eternity, flying toward the tomb, crying, ' Make 
way ! Oh grave, give us back our body ! "We 
gave it to you in corruption ; surrender it now in 
incorruption.' Thousands of spirits arising from 
the field of "Waterloo, and from among the rocks 
of Gettysburg, and from the passes of South 
Mountain. A hundred thousand are crowding 
Greenwood. On this grave three spirits meet, 
for there are three bodies in that tomb ; over 
that family vault twenty spirits hover, for there 
were twenty bodies. From New York to Liver- 
pool, at every few miles on the sea route, a group 
of hundreds of spirits coming down to the water 
to meet their bodies. See that multitude ! that 
is where the Central America sank. And yon- 
der multitude ! that is where the Pacific went 
down. Found at last ! That is where the City 
of Boston sank. And yonder the President 
went down. A solitary spirit alights on yonder 



122 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

prairie — that is where a traveler perished in the 
snow. The whole air is full of spirits — spirits 
flying north, spirits flying south, spirits flying 
east, spirits flying west. Crash ! goes "West- 
minster Abbey, as all its dead kings, and orators, 
and poets get up. Strange commingling of spirits 
searching among the ruins. "William Wilber- 
force, the good, and Queen Elizabeth, the bad. 
Crash ! go the Pyramids, and the monarchs of 
Egypt rise out of the heart of the desert. AH 
those who were chopped by the guillotine, or 
simmered in the fire, or rotted in dungeons, in- 
fants, octogenarians, all, all ! And now the air 
is darkened with the fragments of bodies that 
are coming together from the opposite corners 
of the earth. Lost limbs finding their mate — 
bone to bone, sinew to sinew — until every joint 
is reconstructed, and every arm finds its socket, 
and the amputated limb of the surgeon's table 
shall be set again at the joint from which it was 
severed. A surgeon told me that after the battle 
of Bull Run he amputated limbs, throwing them 
out of the window, until they reached up to the 
window-sill. All those fragments will have to 
take their places. And suppose a part of a body 



DOES THE BIBLE TEACH IT? X23 

is wanting — having been eaten and absorbed 
into the body of a cannibal — can not God make 
a substitute for the part that had been absorbed 
in the cannibal's body ? The resurrected part of 
a good man would rather have a substituted 
portion of body given it than that part of the 
body which a cannibal had eaten and digested." 
Scripture pictures no such scene as this. The 
Bible demands of us no such difficult belief. 
This method of representing the ava6ra6i$ is 
just as repugnant to the divine teachings as it is 
repellant to our entire modern method of thought. 
We are to leave its promulgator, Zoroaster, be- 
hind, and move on into the light shed by One 
who had a deeper insight into the world unseen 
than he — even Jesus — Jesus, who, standing by 
the brother's grave, and hearing Martha speak 
forth words bearing semblance of the Zoroas- 
trian doctrine, "I know he will rise again, in 
the resurrection at the last day," sought to give 
her a new view of the avadradi}, saying: "I am 
the resurrection and the life ; he that believes 
on me, though he be dead, yet shall he live ; and 
whoever lives and believes on me, shall never 
die ; " there is now for him simply life, life ever 



124 THE RESURRECTION OF TEE BOD T. 

developing into new and higher forms ; separa- 
tion from the flesh-body being only a movement 
onward in progressive life, by which he enters into 
possession of his body spiritual, and attains the 
ava6ra6i5. 



THE END. 



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the pulpit nor accomplished directly in the pastorate. 



NEW DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE AUTHORS' 
PUBLISHING CO'S. Publications, supplied free on application 
in person at 27 BOND ST., NEW YORK, or mailed on re- 
ceipt of stamp. 



SHE AUTHORS PUBLISHING OO.'S NEW BOOKS. 



PRACTICAL THOUGHT. 

Mercantile Prices and Profits \ 

Or the Valuation of Commodities for a Fair Trade, 
By M. B. Pilon. Handsomely printed, 8vo., paper, 
100 pp., ...... In Press. 

The author has brought broad experience and comprehensive research to 
bear upon his subjects. His style is terse and perspicuous. He uses the easy 
and concise language of an educated business man ; and, with wonderful art, 
invests every chapter with the grace and charm of a well- told story. 

Monetary Feasts and Famines ; 

Labor, Values, Prices, Foreign and Fair Trade, Scarcity 
of Money and the Causes of Inflation. By M. E. Pllon, 
author of "The Grangers." Uniform with u The 
Grangers, " — [In Press.) 

Gold and Free Banks: 

Ways to arrive at the Demonetization of Gold and 
Silver, and the establishment of Private Banks under 
control of the National Government. By. M. R. 
Pilon, author of " The Grangers." Fifth Edition. 
8vo., 186 pp., paper cover, . . Price 75 cents. 

The work is interesting, and especially valuable to financiers.— Jersey City 
Daily Journal. 

He gives expression to a good deal of sound financial principle.— Louisville 
Daily Commercial. 

It is full of common sense Valuable for its facts, its thoughts and its 

suggestions.— Troy Daily Whig. 

Is written in an interesting and popular style and contains much useful in- 
formation,— Oakland, Gal., Daily News. 

The subject of the high valuation of gold and silver currency is fully dis- 
cussed, and oifers some new ideas worthy the attention of those interested in 
monetary affairs.— To ledo Commercial. 

The author is a merchant who has extensively studied the currency problem. 

His hits are often sharp and incisive Mr. Pilon would provide ample 

banking facilities for every city, town and village, with both stock and land 
security.— Cincinnati Daily Star. 

Discussing the currency question in an original, forcible and enter- 
taining style. The author has brought together a great amount of varied 

information upon the whole subject of money Those interested will find 

unquestioned ability in the author's handling of it.— Baltimore Methodist 
Protestant. 

The Manuscript Manual: 

How to Prepare Manuscripts for the Press— practical 
and to the point. Paper, 26 pp., 8vo. Price 10 cents. 

A most useful little companion to the young writer and editor.— The South, 
New York. 
Gives excellent hints to intending writers.— Cleveland Evan. Messenger 



THE AUTHORS' PUBLISHING CO.'S NEW BOOKS. 

AESTHETIC THOUGHT. 

Srene; or, Beach-Broken Billows: 

A Story. By Mrs. B. F. Baer, author of " Lena's 

Marriage," "The Match-Girl of New York," u Little 
Bare-Foot," etc., etc. The second volume of the Inter- 
national Prize Series. Second Edition. Cloth extra, 
fine thick paper. 1 2mo. . . . Price $1 00. 

Natural, honest and delicate. — New York Herald, 

Charming and thoughtful. — Poughkeepsie Eagle. 

Depicted 5n strong terms. — Baptist Union, New York. 

Eminently pleasing and profitable. — Christian Era, Boston. 

A fascinating volume. — Georgia Musical Eclectic Magazine. 

Characters and plot fresh and original. — Bridgeport News. 

With freshness, clearness, and vigor. — Neb. Watchman. 

Delightful book. — /Saturday Revieiv, Louisville, Ky. 

Lays open a whole network of the tender and emotional* — 
Williamsport (Pa.) Daily Register. 

The unity is well preserved, the characters maintaining that 
probability so essential in the higher forms of fiction.— Balti- 
more Methodist Protestant. 

There is a peculiar charm in the reading of this book, which 
every one who peruses it must feel. It is very like to that 
which is inspired in reading any of Hawthorne's romances.— 
Hartford Religious Herald. 

Wi!d Flowers: 

Poems. By Charles W. Hubner, author of 
" Souvenirs of Luther." Elegantly printed on fine 
tinted paper, with portrait of the Author, imitation 
morocco and beveled edges, 196 pp., 12mo. Just ready. 
Price SI 25. The same, gilt edges, . . $L 75 

As a poet Mr. Hubner is conservative— always tender and delicate, never 
turbid or erratic. He evinces a strong love of nature and high spirituality, 
and brings us, from the humblest places and in the humblest guises, beauties 
of the heart, the life, the universe, and, while placing them before our vision, 
has glorified them and shown that within them of whose existence we had 
never dreamed. 



Her Waiting Heart: 

A Novel. By Lou Capsadell, author of " Hallow 
E'en." Cloth extra, 192 pp., 12mo. Just ready. $1 00. 

A story of New York— drawn from the familiar phases of life, which, under 
the calmest surfaces, cover the greatest depths. Charming skill is shown in 
the naturalness of characterization, development of plot and narrative, 
strength of action and delicacy of thought. 



THE AUTHOKS' PUBLISHING CO.'S NEW BOOKS. 7 

Shadowed Perils: 

A Novel. By M. A. Avery, author of " The Loyal 

Bride," etc. English cloth, 260 pp., 12mo, ... $1 25 

The story is bold and dramatic in action, graceful in narrative, strong in characteriza- 
tion, intense in interest, sweet and pure in tone, and is marked by keen sympathy with 
the iowly and oppressed. 

Egypt Ennis; or, Prisons Without Walls: 

A Novel. By Kelsic Etheridge. Paper, 97 pp., 
8vo., Price, 35 cents. 

Has the curiosity-exciting tendency. — Boston Beacon. 

The interest grows and retains attention to the end.— N. 0. Picayune. 

Short, sententious, marrowy, and spiced with episodes. Has a warm southern aroma 
of orange and magnolia blossoms.— Baltimore M eth. Prot. 

Of rare beauty and power in its vivid, life-like picturing of men and places 

Through such artistic touches of skill and strength we are wafted in thought as we fol- 
low the hero and heroine through the mazes of the old, old story.— Ladies' Pearl, St. Louis. 

The Travelers' Grab-Bag ; or, the Heart of a Quiet Hour : 

A Hand-book for utilizing fragments of leisure in railroad 
trains, steamboats, way stations and easy chairs. Edited 
by An Old Traveler. . . . Paper, 100 pp., 
8vo Price, 35 cents. 

Full of spice and fan.— Baltimore Meth. Prot. 

No traveler should be without it N. Y. Forest and Stream. 

Teeming with rollicking humor and a kind of satire that will be enjoyable.— Pittsburgh 
Commercial. 



Guarded by a Fear: 



By Mrs. M. B. Sheridan. Paper. 8vo, 77 pp. 
In Press. 

A good story, vividly and beautifully told, full o/ attractive originality, character and 
Ingenuity of plot. 



8 THE authors' publishing co.'s kew books. 
Women's Secrets; or, How to be Beautiful; 

Translated and Edited from the Persian and French, with 
additions from the best English authorities. By Lou. 
Capsadell, author of "Her Waiting Heart," "Hallow 
E'en," etc. Pp. 100, 12mo. 

Saratoga Edition, in Scotch granite paper covers, 25 cents. 
Boudoir Edition, French grey and blue cloths, . 75 cents. 

The systems, directions and recipes for promoting Personal Beauty, as practiced for 
thousands of years by the renowned beauties of the Orient, and for securing the grace 
and charm for which the French Toilette and Boudoir are distinguished, together with 
suggestions from the best authorities, comprising History and Uses of Beauty; The Best 
Standards; Beautiful Children ; Beauty Food, Sleep, Exercise, Health, Emotions* How 
to be Fat ; How to be Lean ; How to be Beautiful and to remain so, etc., etc. 

Fair Minthe ; or, The Curious Origin of Mint Julip ; 

Being the Sad Story and Lamentable Fate of the Fair 
Minthe. By Frank Dashmore. 12mo, large type and 
thick paper, 

Saratoga Edition, Scotch granite covers, ... 25 cents. 
Mint Julip Edition, French blue and grey cloths, 75 cents. 

Bright, sparkling, jolly, tantalizing, piquant, unique— very. 

Nine Little Busters: 

By Kelsic Etheridge, author of "Egypt Ennis," etc. 
Child's 4to. 

The Boys 9 Edition, Scotch granite covers, . . 25 cents. 
Holiday Edition, French blue and grey cloths, . 75 cents. 

The ludicrous and serious adventures, trials and triumphs, of Nine heroic Little 
Busters. 

|W Inclose three-cent stamp for pamphlet, comprising des- 
criptive catalogue and the plan of organization and working of 
The Authors' Publishing Company. Address, 

THE AUTHORS' PUBLISHING CO., 

27 Bond Street New York. 



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